


It's A Confusing Life

by RisaHelm



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: F/M, GTA V AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-05-19 06:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19351597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisaHelm/pseuds/RisaHelm
Summary: When had your life become this impossible?





	1. Starting New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who knew life could get this difficult? All you wanted was a normal day back.

You pulled the curtains open as wide as they could go letting the sun spill into your room, you basked in it for just a moment and smiled. The sun was the best part of this chaotic city, but then again if you weren’t part of one the bigger gangs then maybe you’d be able to enjoy more things about it than the sun, being locked up from days to months did that to you.

You dressed for the sun in shorts and tank before heading to the kitchen to start your cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal.

“How do you manage to be up so early?” You looked over at the sleepy voice. He was wearing just boxers and had messy bed hair you smiled and shrugged at him.

“I’m just used to having to get up early prison will do that to you. Maybe one day if you’re bad enough you might get to go,” you spoke about your time in prison as if it were a trip to Disney when it was anything but. You also knew that if you kept getting arrested the courts would be tired of seeing you there all time and put an end to your life of crime for at least ten to fifteen years. You turned away from him to hide your sudden fear of being put away for so long and stared out the window hoping he’d be too sleepy to notice your panicked reflection.

“Yeah yeah yeah, you and Geoff are so special. Did you ever think that maybe the rest of us are just too skilled to be arrested and you guys are too dumb?” He teased. You stood and put your empty bowl and cup in the sink before leaning back on the counter and looking at him.

“Did  _ you _ ever think that maybe Geoff and I take the fall for you guys because that’s what family does?”

“You’re not our parents, especially  _ you _ you’re barely older than me.”

“I don’t want to be your parents’ but I will if that means it keeps you fools out of trouble.” He walked over to you and smirked.

“I don’t need help to stay out of trouble.” You laughed and ruffled his hair, he may have been five inches taller than you and you may have had to stand on your tiptoes to do it but you still managed it.

“Sure Ray, now go shower and get ready, we’ve got a big day to plan for.”

“Yes  _ mom _ .” He grimaced. You blew him a kiss and walked to your room. You gathered up your mini med kit and your favorite silver gun, with sapphire blue on one side the grip and an engraving on the other side saying  _ Safety First _ . You loaded the gun and switched the safety on before holstering it; a light knock came from the other side of your door.

“Yeah?” Ray peeked inside a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Wanna help me?” You nearly shot him a look that said  _ fuck off _ , but changed your mind last minute and smiled sweetly at him.

“You say that to all your moms’?” You could see the panic in his eyes as he realized what he said, his face turned bright red and he stomped off.

“You sure know how to be such a boner killer Y/N!” He shouted at you before slamming his bedroom door shut.

“Love you too boo.” You laughed and closed your door gently before continuing your morning routine.

Once you both were ready and Ray was over his tantrum you took the elevator to your garage to head to the office.

“What are you going with?” Ray asked as he climbed on his Faggio. You figured that it was nice enough to ride your bike and you got on your crimson red Akuma. You drove to the exit with Ray trying to get right behind you but there was no way that was going to happen unless someone shot your tire out, which he was not above doing, but he was also not stupid enough to do to you. 

You slowed down before making it to your last turn, which is when you noticed  _ him _ standing across the street. You gestured for Ray to follow you into the alley and stopped at the other end, you propped your bike up and pulled your gun out keeping it low with the safety still on, you heard Ray click his safety off and pressed his back to yours as he scanned for the danger you noticed. That was the great thing about this gang you did not need to speak a word just a gun out would send the message that danger was near and it threatened anyone in the vicinity.

“One hundred yards to the East, orange and purple Adder, and cowboy hat, I’ve seen his picture on the wanted wall in the police station.”

“Name?”

“Jeremy Dooley, street name is Lil J.” You would not have cared if he had been anywhere else in the city. Unfortunately, he was only just down the road to the gang’s headquarters and happened to be waiting his hand ready at his gun on the street that you drove down with one of the best shots in your gang, which was too much of a coincidence for you. Ray had his eyes trained to the end of the alley with his gun held steady on the entrance, and his phone already to his ear letting, no doubt Michael, know what was going on.

“He didn’t see us go in the alley; his Intel isn’t very up to date if he didn’t know what vehicles we drive.”

“Or he’s waiting for backup before approaching.”

“No known affiliates to any gang in the area.” You recited the words as if you reading them off the document you managed to glance at on a desk in the station the last time the cops had brought you in for questioning. Ray didn’t question it, they had all learned not question you anymore, you had a photographic memory and it made you the most reliable person in the gang.

“What’s he doing here?” Ray hissed, you shrugged and leaned around the corner to get a better look at Lil J, he was glancing from the street you both turned off to the end of the street where the building was for your headquarters.

“We can’t stay here though.” You began searching for a way out that would be discreet but the only way out was the roof, you wouldn’t leave your bike here not if you could help it, no way you’d let it get impounded.

“Yeah that’s why I called Michael.” Ray agreed, you didn’t know what Michael could do that would be discreet enough to get you two out of there but you trusted him to help you.

“Well he needs to-“ You couldn’t even finish before you heard his stupid horn blaring down the street from headquarters and watched as he sped towards Lil J with another person in the vehicle leaning out the window and his gun aimed at him. The bullets shot all around just missing him, you watched him dive behind his car and draw his gun out to fire back but your two brothers in arms were already gone speeding down the road. He jumped in his vehicle and chased them down.

“Let’s go, we gotta meet Geoff and tell him what’s going on, I doubt Michael told him anything if he showed up within minutes of your phone call.” You jumped on your bike and sped off towards headquarters Ray was behind you instantly when you jumped off and ran to the elevator.

“I’ll give them this they didn’t waste any time in saving our asses.”

“Well it’s no ‘going to prison for you’ but I think it was a good attempt.”

“Oh shut up, you know that I meant well when I said that.” Ray laughed and threw his arm around you when you reached your floor you wrapped your arm around his waist and walked past the secretary giving her a smile.

“Good morning Mr. Narvaez and welcome back Miss Carter”, she greeted. You pushed the doors open to Geoff’s office where he sat with Ryan and Jack they were all turned to the window as they watched the street below them.

“Care to explain what the fuck just happened down there?” Geoff snapped.

“I missed you too.” You snapped back at him, he turned quickly and smiled when he saw you.

“I didn’t think you’d be back so soon, I told Ray to tell you not to come in.” He stood and walked over to hug you, you hugged him back sighing when he kissed the top of your head.

“How could I miss a day like this?” When he let you go you walked over to Jack and Ryan giving them a hug just as long as you did Geoff.

“We missed you”, Jack said as you let go of him.

“I know.”

“So what happened?” Ryan asked, his serious face showing up more quickly than his smile did.

“Someone was watching the building and the road where we come from,” you explained and gestured to yourself and Ray as you spoke, “Jeremy Dooley, he was waiting to gun us down.”

“Are you sure?” Ryan asked. He crossed his arms as he looked down at the street again, you could see his hands clench into fists, waiting for the go ahead to begin the fight.

“It’s the only conclusion I can come to, Ray and I detoured and had Michael and Gavin draw his attention, he was quick to fire when Gavin shot at him.” Geoff sighed and placed his hand on Ryan’s shoulder to let him know to relax.

“Do we have a problem on our hands?” Jack asked leaning his arms on the table he looked from you to Geoff.

“We’ll see when Michael and Gav come back.”

After waiting for another thirty minutes, you started to pace, getting more concerned that those two idiots got themselves arrested or killed. Lil J had to be good enough of killer for LSPD to make a wanted poster for him; you didn’t know much about him so you could have easily have sent them to their deaths. You paced in front of the chair where Ray sat flipping through his phone he didn’t even look up at you when he grabbed your hand to make you stop.

“Just chill, this is Michael and Gavin we’re talking about, those two are unstoppable together. Nothing will bring them down except each other.” You nodded and whipped your head around when the door burst open, it wasn’t them but it was someone you didn’t want to talk to if those two idiots were missing.

“How long?”

“Thirty minutes.” You told her, she nodded her face grave as she looked at her phone.

“I’m sure they’re fine Lindsay”, you had to convince her just as Ray had to convince you.

“Yeah I know, just me being paranoid.” She smiled, you hugged her not only to comfort her but because you had missed her since you were last locked up she was your best friend, top of the list.

“They’ll call.”

“They just did.” Geoff called from his office, he walked back in and everyone rushed in to hear what he had to say.

“What happened?”

“They lost him at the airport in the desert, but Gav got shot.” Your heart fell to the bottom of your stomach.

“Damage?” Ryan asked him.

“Just his arm, Michael’s rushing him back now.” Geoff said looking to you, you ran to the back room where the medical supplies were and sanitized it the best you could, you set up and waited for the doors to the elevator to open. You waited another ten minutes before those doors opened, everyone moved quickly to get Gavin to the table where you waited to treat him.

“Welcome back love”, his voice was weak, he’d lost a lot of blood, Lil J must have hit an artery, you smiled gently at him to reassure him everything was going to be fine and immediately started to work.

You cut the sleeve off him and assessed the damage, no arteries were hit, just a few more bullet holes than one, you let out a sigh of relief, you weren’t able to perform a major surgery like that, but bullet holes were easy. You cleaned his wounds and connected an IV to his hand with it you gave him a shot of morphine as well, you waited as you watched his eyes glass over before you started. You stretched his arm out to get the bullet out from under his arm and smiled at his attempt of bravery as he held in his whine.

“It’s just you and me sweetheart you don’t have to hide your pain, the morphine can only kill so much of it.”

“What kind of man would I be if I start crying because of a few bullet wounds?”

“A normal one.” He brushed your hair out of your face with his good arm and sighed.

“We really were lost without you.”

“That’s the morphine talking.” You laughed; you felt your face burn though at the compliment.

“We were, especially R-“ He was cut off by a knock at the door, Michael peeked in and waited for you to let him come in.

“Alright”, you agreed and went back to work.

“You alright Gavvy?” Michael asked him as he looked at his wounded arm.

“Alright Micoo.” Gavin sighed and placed his hand on your lower back as he lay there watching your face.

“Y/N is gonna patch you up nice and good alright.”

“I know she’s nicer than the bird from the hospital.”

“Well she doesn’t know how to treat you is all.” You told him as you closed the first wound.

“No one will treat me as well as you.”

“I gave him morphine.” You told Michael, which had made him laugh.

“That’s not the morphine talking”, Gavin told him, his eyes were half closed and he had a dopey smile on his face.

“Michael could you grab a pair of gloves and hand me the other pair of tweezers in the drawer over there?” He nodded and followed the instructions you gave him, as you finished closing the last bullet hole you smiled at Gavin, his eyes still glassy and his dopey smile still on his face.

“All set Gavvers.”

“Thanks love.” You kissed his forehead and cleaned up your materials.

“Let me disinfect the area again and wrap it up, then you’ll be all set to go shoot some more people.”

“As a team”, Michael said looking at you.

“As a family”, Gavin added. You smiled at your brothers; your idiots.

Michael helped you carry Gavin out to the couch where everyone except the Gents were waiting, Matt and Trevor had finally shown up and greeted you as you gently set Gavin down.

“Nice to see you two boys, Trevor your hair is normal again”, you teased him, he laughed and ran his hand through his hair, “and Matt your hair still makes you look homeless.”

“Thanks?”

“What are they doing?” Michael asked the two boys.

“Trying to find out as much as they can about Jeremy before we go after him.” Trevor told him and glanced at Matt quickly you stored the look away and made a mental note to ask him about it later. You went over to where Ray was sitting and sat on the arm of his chair, you felt exhausted after working for the last two hours.

“You’re getting rusty.” Ray mentioned to you when he noticed you looked at the clock.

“Excuse me?” You glared at him.

“I’m just saying you used to patch us up faster than that.” Ray smirked at your glare.

“Well fuck you because I was too busy being jail to keep up on my skills.” Michael looked up when you snapped at Ray and smiled.

“Declarations of love come in all forms”, Michael called out to you.

“Alright, everyone in here now!” Geoff shouted at your group. Michael and Matt carried Gavin into the room and sat him down carefully. Gavin started to spin in his chair and you couldn’t help the giggle that came out.

“Is he high?” Jack asked laughing at Gavin too.

“Just a little”, you replied. Geoff sighed and rolled his eyes at the British boy.

“Well we’ve found out as much as we could about this Jeremy Dooley, there isn’t much out there, he used to be a part of some small gang back in Liberty City, nothing too important, he seems to have left them and killed his way up here.” You realized that’s how he must have gotten the wanted poster up so quickly, you’d never heard of him before.

“So now our problem is that he’s planning something for us. We don’t know what yet, but based on what happened to you all this morning I’d say it isn’t good. We need to be more vigilant than normal and that also means we got to wait on the heist.”

“Fuck that! He didn’t get shot for us to hide out like pussies.” Michael yelled gesturing at Gavin who was still spinning in his chair not even aware of what was going on.

“What happens if during the heist he shows up and try’s to kill us?” Geoff snapped at him.

“We kill him first.” Ray shrugged.

“Good idea, yeah we should just do that. Why didn’t I think of that?” Geoff said sarcastically.

“Okay we get it, no heist till we figure out this Jeremy situation.” You said before anyone else could get a word in, your first day back was already looking like shit you didn’t want to add high tension and arguing to it. You looked around the group analyzing everyone’s face to see if they were going to let it drop.

“Okay”, Geoff began when you nodded at him. You blocked him out as he started talking more about Jeremy, you had read all of files that lay open on the table in front of you and knew what he was going to say, there wasn’t a lot and most of it was confidential and blacked out. Ray leaned back in his chair and set a hand on your leg, you snapped out of your thoughts and slowly looked at him he smiled and moved it higher up your thigh you leaned into him and whispered in his ear.

“You move any higher up and you’ll find out what it’s like to be treated for a bullet wound without morphine.”

“I’ll take the risk”, he whispered back, his hand didn’t move though.

“Oh really, well I won’t be the one to shoot you.” You glanced at Ryan and he was watching you two. Out of all of the gang Ryan was the one to shoot first ask questions later especially when it came to you. He was the one that brought you in, he’d been there for you when you had no one else, you’d seen the softer side of him when others only saw the psycho murder side or even just the neutral side. 

Ray looked over to Ryan and you felt his hand slide slowly off your leg and he shifted away from you, you winked at Ray and sat back in your chair to continue daydreaming. Geoff ended the meeting and everyone gathered back into the living room in their respective small groups.

“Why do you always have to ruin my fun?” Ray asked following you into the back room where you had treated Gavin earlier.

“To be fair, I didn’t ruin it, Ryan did.”

“Yeah okay, but you didn’t have to bring him into it.” He came up behind you and spun you around. Your hands pinned to his chest as his arms wound around you.

“It’s not my fault he’s protective of me.”

“It’s more fun to fool around with you when he isn’t helicoptering over you.” You smiled at the tone in his voice, it sounded like a child complaining about not getting his way.

“You mean in secret where he can’t see?”

“He wasn’t like this before.” You thought back to six months ago when you had been out last, you and Ray had been openly flirtatious with each other and Ryan hadn’t really minded. You had felt his eyes watching you when Ray touched you in the meeting, you knew just from that one look it was different. Like losing you for the last six months had changed him.

“I know.”

“I missed you, you know.”

“Aww you did miss me?” You smiled at him your fingers tugged lightly on his collar and pulled him down to kiss you. Kissing Ray was the best thing next to the sun, living without it him was hard, even when you came back just a few days ago, it was different. You hadn’t slept with him, you hadn’t touched him, just light teasing and stolen looks, today was the first day he had touched you and unfortunately for him Ryan had noticed and suddenly seemed to mind. His hand slid under the back of your shirt as he held you closer, you managed to unpin your arms and wrap them around his neck. He pulled away and kissed down your jaw to your neck biting and sucking gently to make his mark. When he pulled away you were both still breathless, your pupils’ were blown wide, both your lips were swollen and wet.

“I did miss you”, he whispered, his lips grazing yours, his fingers gripped your hips and he lifted you onto the table, “I missed you a lot.”

“Oh yeah, prove it.” You told him, he groaned and kissed you again, his tongue teasing yours as his hands pushed up your shirt, he rubbed your breasts flicking your nipple with his thumb. You rubbed the front of his pants and he moaned at the attention into your mouth.

“Lock the door”, you breathed when he pulled back to regain control. He moved quickly to the door and once the lock clicked you pulled your shirt off and unbuttoned your pants, he moved to the other side of the room and rummaged through a drawer grabbing something and nearly running back to you. He stopped; just taking in the sight of you in your underwear and bra, he licked his lips and grabbed you off the table and turned you around. You heard him undo his belt and lower his pants, he pressed against you as he leaned over to kiss your neck and rub your hips playing with the material.

“Come on Ray”, you sighed. You pushed back against him loving the feeling of his member against your ass, he lowered your underwear and pushed your legs apart he rubbed your clit and pushed a finger inside you gently testing how ready you were. You moaned quietly as he pumped in and out of you with his finger, he added another finger stretching you more preparing you for him. After another minute he added a third finger and knew that you were ready, you turned around when he pulled his fingers out, you wanted to face him the first time you made love again. He smiled and lifted you on the table again he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a condom, he lowered his boxers put it on. He pressed the head of his dick against you, rubbing softly, teasing you. You growled and wrapped your legs around him pulling him closer and pushing him in. He didn’t move at first you knew he was trying to control himself, his forehead pressed into your shoulder and he gripped your hips holding you so you wouldn’t move. Your heavy breathing was the only sound that could be heard, a part of you was worried that someone would hear, but a larger part of you didn’t care it just wanted Ray to start moving and as if you’d said it out loud he started moving. You missed having him inside you the idea of him inside of you was enough to turn you on, but the feeling was even more pleasurable. He moved slowly at first building a rhythm, but it started to become erratic when he saw you start to rub your clit.

“Fuck Y/N.” He thrust harder into you panting your name between every kiss from your mouth to your neck always leaving his mark.

“Ray, please.” He knew what you wanted, he moved harder and faster pushing you closer to the edge as you rubbed faster on your clit until finally you felt the pressure release and you came, the muscles clenching around him were enough for him to follow right behind you. He didn’t move until his breathing quieted and slowly pulled out of you.

“I really fucking missed you”, he sighed. You pushed his hair back from his sweaty forehead and kissed him, he let you go to redress while he cleaned himself off and redressed himself.

“I’m going to have to really sanitize this room again.” Ray laughed and kissed you softly before hugging you, holding you there. You heard someone try and open the door and then pound on the door.

“Open up fuckers, Gavin is in pain”, Michael shouted from the other side of the door.

“How’d you know we were fucking?” You asked when you opened the door.

“For fucks sake it smells like sex in here.” Michael grimaced and went to the cabinet that held all sorts of meds he rummaged around and then looked at you.

“I keep the good shit locked up”, you said leaving to grab your keys from your back pack. You walked out to see that no one had even moved since you saw them last, no one noticed that you came out except for Ryan, his arms were crossed as he leaned against the wall and watched you go to your bag.

“You alright Ry?” You asked when you retrieved the keys.

“Yup.” His tone was snippy but if he wasn’t willing to say something then you weren’t going to ask him what was wrong with him, yet. You walked back to the room and saw Michael and Ray arguing quietly before they stopped when you walked in.

“Please don’t stop on my account.”

“Just don’t fuck it up.” Michael told him before going over to the locked cabinet and getting a few Vicodin from you. When he left Ray reached for you and you held his hand when you walked out, he caught Ryan’s eyes and gripped tighter, showing he wasn’t going to stop simply holding your hand because he was being over protective, he’d control the other stuff, but an innocent hand hold wasn’t hurting anyone. You did end up letting go when you went to check on Gavin and Ray didn’t seem to mind that.

“Now tell me, where does it hurt?” You asked him with a smile.

“I’d tell you but I’m pretty sure more than one person would shoot me again if I did.” He laughed at his own joke and grimaced at the pain when he moved.

“Well how about we start with the obvious and work on the other pain when you’re feeling better”, you told him checking his wound. It hadn’t bled through which was good, the Vicodin would kick in soon now that the morphine was out of his system.

“He needs to go home and rest”, you said when you walked over to Geoff; he looked at Gavin then at you.

“We can’t have him be alone now.”

“He needs to sleep Geoff, he’s not going to sleep here its’ too loud, what if Matt or Trevor stay with him?”

“Matt come here”, Geoff called to him. Matt came jogging over to him and stood still as if a soldier awaiting orders all he was missing was the salute.

“Take Gavin home, stay with him till someone comes to relieve you, always have your gun out, and do not answer the door until I give you the password for them”, he said poking him in the chest at each order.

“Yes sir.”

“Good, now go.” Matt turned instantly and helped carry Gavin out the door and to his car.

“Now what?” You asked Geoff.

“Now we plan, we need to find out more than what we have, Ryan is going to drive the city and try to find him, go with him to help. Jack’s gonna hack into LSPD’s system and see what he can find there, Michael and Lindsay are gonna go do rounds around the block and now I guess Gavin’s house.”

“What about Ray and Trevor?”

“I’ll have Trevor stay and help me go through these files some more and then relieve Matt later on, Ray can relieve him after a while too.”

“I’ll take Ray with me for the time being them, three people looking would be a lot better.”

“Are you sure it’s to just help look for him?” Geoff smirked. You glared at him and stormed off, you’d never give him the satisfaction of him taking a stab at your relationship with Ray.

“Ryan, Ray let’s go.” You gestured for them to follow you to the elevator. You heard Geoff and Jack laughing as the doors closed.

“Where are we going?” Ray asked.

“We’re gonna search for Jeremy around town, you spot him you keep your distance and call.” You told him, still irritated at Geoff, making your tone snippy like Ryan’s had been earlier.

“You okay?” Ray asked quietly, his fingers caressing yours.

“Yeah, just Geoff being fucking stupid”, you told him as the doors opened. 

“Must be difficult”, Ryan remarked as he climbed in his car

“The fuck does that mean?” Ray asked as Ryan started his vehicle. You glared at him as you got on your motorcycle, you hesitated turning it on though.

“We need to take different cars, if there is a chance he saw us take our bikes this morning he’ll notice us faster than we’ll notice him.” You got off your bike and took Geoff’s hot pink bike. Ray took his hot pink Kuruma and followed Ryan out onto the street, Ryan yelled for the directions we needed to go; you’d go east, Ray would go south, and Ryan would go north. Once you all made your way to the very west side of the town you would then head back to headquarters. Ryan sped off down the road once he was out of sight you took your helmet off and kissed Ray quickly, telling him to be safe, and drove off down the street as well.

You weaved through the busy streets running all the red lights, avoiding any police you saw roaming the streets. You’d reached the end of your route after over three hours of searching and drove back going through as many back alleys you could before making it to the vantage point you agreed to meet Ray and Ryan. They weren’t there yet so you just turned off Geoff’s bike and waited, you considered doing some shooting practice but you knew someone would report you the second you took one shot off and immediately the cops would be on you, that wouldn’t be good for you since you’d only been out for a few days. You heard a car approach and saw the pink Kuruma stop ten feet from you. Ray got out and shrugged at you and you just shook your head and waited with him for Ryan.

“Do you think you he found him?” Ray asked after waiting for another hour.

“No, he would have called me.” You were hoping he would have at least. After another thirty minutes you were getting to the point where it was enough, you pulled your phone out and called him, it went straight to voicemail.

“Mother fucker, answer your phone. Do not make me come and find you James Ryan Haywood”, you yelled into the phone. You hit end and called him again, straight to voicemail.

“Let’s look for him, I’ll call Jack and Geoff, he’ll rally up the troops for a man search”, Ray said pulling out his phone, before he could dial the number gunshots sounded in the distance.

“Gun shots don’t echo”, you told Ray as you both looked towards the sound.

“So that’s close”, he agreed. You jumped on Geoff’s bike and headed off towards the sound Ray jumped in his car and sped off after you.

You saw a line of police chasing two vehicles; with shots being fired left and right.

“Son of a bitch”, you yelled. You push the throttle and drove right to the front of the line. Ray drove behind you catching all the bullets, you were grateful he was smart enough to take Geoff’s armored Kuruma. You saw Ryan’s car tailing the purple and orange one and knew that he was going to end this fight for you all before anyone else got hurt.

“Ryan stop”, you begged him. You watched as he slammed his car into the back of Lil J’s car and watched as they both spun out of control; you had to do something quick. You veered away from the chase and slammed the breaks hard nearly falling off. You pulled your phone out and dialed Geoff’s number.

_ “Hello?” _

“Geoff you have to divert the police, call your specialist, tell him to get all police to an emergency back in the city, Ryan found him. They crashed though and the police are closing in!”

_ “Fuckin’ Ryan.” _

“Hurry”, you shouted and ended the call. You got back on the bike and sped off towards the group again, you caught up to Ray who was pushing the front police cars off the side of the road making them crash into others. Once Ray was back in control, you flipped your visor up to get his attention.

“Geoff’s taking care of it, just get to Ryan I’ll make sure Jeremy doesn’t get away.”

“Y/N no! You get Ryan, I’ll get Jeremy. Ryan needs you more than me, he’ll be hurt and I won’t know what to do”, Ray yelled back to you. You pushed the throttle again and sped off to Ryan’s smoking vehicle. The police were catching up Geoff needed to hurry his ass up. You skidded to a stop by Ryan’s car and ran to the driver’s side, he was unconscious blood was dripping down his face.

“Shit shit shit! Ryan wake up, you gotta wake up”, you begged trying to open the door; it was crushed and stuck shut. You ran to the other side and it wouldn’t open either, you grabbed a rock and broke the glass open. You heard the sirens coming closer you needed to get him out of there. You unlocked the door and pulled it open, Ryan’s seatbelt was already unbuckled and you managed to pull him over to the passenger side. You checked his wound and it didn’t look serious, his pulse was weak though, he probably had some broken bones and internal bleeding, he needed a real doctor and soon.

“This is the Los Santos Police Department, come out with your hands up”, you heard an officer shout.

“Fuckin’ Geoff”, you yelled still cradling Ryan’s head.

“I will not repeat myself, if you do not comply we will shoot!” You didn’t move you couldn’t leave Ryan, he wouldn’t leave you. You begged that Geoff to come through with his call, and he finally did.

“Sir we’ve got a robbery in the process all units to the Maze Bank!”

“You got lucky scum bag”, the first officer shouted to you and they all drove off, hesitant at first.

“Ray”, you shouted off in the distance.

“I’m here, Lil J’s gone! How’s Ryan?”

“Unconscious, I need the car hurry his is smoking!” You heard Geoff’s car rev its engine and Ray raced to you.

“Help me lift him in.” You had tears running down your face it had been awhile since you had one of your brothers’ unconscious in your arms, not since Michael had fallen off a ladder and broken both of his legs.

“It’s gonna be okay, he’s gonna be fine”, Ray repeated to you once Ryan was laying in the back.

“He needs a hospital, drop him off. I’ll meet you there.”

“You can’t fix him?”

“No, his pulse is weak and all I can see is a head wound, something is really damaged and I’m not qualified to take care of him. Just go!” You watched with panic as Ray drove out of sight. You pulled your phone out and dialed Geoff’s number.

_ “Did it work? Is he okay?” _

“Where the hell were you? We almost were shot down, Ryan’s unconscious, and Jeremy’s gone! Ray’s taking him to the hospital now”, you yelled at Geoff. You weren’t necessarily angry at him but he was the one you could yell at, at the moment.

_ “I called him as soon as I got off the phone, I can’t help he took so long to get them to back off! Don’t yell at me for this shit Y/N, you were supposed to have a plan and you didn’t follow it!” _

“I had a plan! My plan was supposed to be that we follow, not to engage, and call the others Ryan didn’t follow that plan and went all Mad King on his ass. Now he’ll be underground for who knows how long and Ryan is gonna be in the hospital.”

_ “Alright alright! We’ll figure this out, just get back here!” _

“I’m not gonna leave him, once Ray drops him I’m going to go sit there with him.”

_ “No, we need you here, Jeremy might try and attack after Ryan went after him.” _

“I’ll take the risk Geoff this is Ryan we’re talking about, after all the shit that he’s done for me I’m not leaving his side.” You were so angry at this point that you had started crying again. You couldn’t believe Geoff was even arguing this much with you, you had proved yourself to this crew and by taking the fall for everyone you had expected that you wouldn’t be questioned about something as simple as this. There was silence on the other line for a while you checked your phone just to make sure Geoff hadn’t hung up on you, after another minute of silence Geoff sighed.

_ “You will check in as often as possible, you do not leave the hospital for anything unless you run it by me first, everyone’s safety is number one from now on, no more halfcocked mission, alright?” _

“Yes sir.” You had rarely ever called Geoff ‘sir’ but you needed to give him just that little bit of appreciation.

You hung your phone up and ran for your bike; you needed to get to Ryan. You sped past all the red lights, cars nearly hitting you by inches. Rain had started to fall by the time you reached the hospital making driving even a little more erratic for you but you made it, you jumped off your bike and to the front desk.

“Welcome to Los Santos Hospital. How can I help you?” The nurse smiled behind the desk as she spoke. You peered behind her at the reflection in the mirrored wall; your eyes were puffy, your hair was disheveled, and makeup was running down your face.

“I received a call that my brother was brought here.” You were breathless, trying to act surprised and concerned when really it was anger and concern.

“Okay, who’s your brother?”

“James Haywood.” They wouldn’t find any ID on him and that he wasn’t in the system yet. She searched and frowned when she couldn’t find anything.

“I’m not seeing his name, who called you?”

“One of his friends, they just called and said he was in the hospital and then hung up. Please he has to be here, they wouldn’t just be lying he’s all I have left.” You started crying again, this girl was going to be so wrapped around your finger by the end of this conversation she’d probably lead you into the OR herself.

“Okay okay. Hold on I’ll contact ER and see if they have anyone new.” She dialed quickly and spoke in a quiet rushed voice. You pulled out your phone and text Ray as you waited for the news.

**Where are you?**

**_Geoff is pissed._ **

**Gee can’t imagine why.**

**_Hurry back soon._ **

**Idk how long I’ll be here.**

**_Ok._ **

‘Ok’?  No, you didn’t need to look into that right now, you’d just talk to him later about you needed to focus on Ryan right now. You heard the phone click and looked back to the receptionist.

“Okay so we did have a gentleman get dropped off fifteen minutes ago, he had no ID, and his friend didn’t seem to want to stick around. If you just head to the ER they will talk to you more about it.” She smiled.

“Thank you.” You yelled as you ran off to the ER. You burst through the door and ran to the woman behind the glass at the desk she held her finger up to you as you approached. You ground your teeth and all you could think was you’d rip her fingers off one by one and feed them to her if she didn’t put it down soon.

“Yes?” She asked once she got off the phone.

“My brother was dropped off here and I’d like to know his condition.”

“Name?”

“James Haywood.” She looked at her computer and typed his name.

“Not here. Take a seat and if he shows up I’ll let you know.” She said waving you away.

“No, he was just dropped off here by his friend, please just ask another nurse.”

“Ma’am we have a lot of people dropped off here, you or your brother aren’t any more special than the rest of the people sitting in this room. Now take a seat and I will let you know when he shows up.” Your temper was rising, if only this woman knew what you were capable of, she’d be groveling at your feet begging for forgiveness for being so rude to you.

“Let me make this very clear to you, my brother is part of a very serious group of people that will take this hospital down in a heartbeat and that is nothing compared to what I can do if you do not get off your fat ass and get me my brother’s state.”

“Do I need to call security?”

“No you need to call another nurse and find my brother.” She sat just staring at you unimpressed by your threats and insults.

“Take a seat.” You were shaking with anger you couldn’t believe this woman. You stormed away from the counter and sat down glaring at her. After ten minutes, your phone rang and saw it was Jack, your anger hadn’t quite simmered down so when you answered you were more aggressive than you intended.

“What?”

_ “Uh, so not good news?” _

“I don’t know this fat cow won’t tell me anything.” You growled at the woman behind the glass.

_ “Did you try and be nice?” _

“Did you call just to give me tips on how to be sociable or was there an actual reason?”

_ “Yes Miss Priss. Geoff wanted a check in since you hadn’t yet, he figured you’d still be too mad at him to call but apparently no one can call you without you acting like a bitch.” _

“Alright, fine. I’m sorry I snapped. This is me checking in I can’t get to Ryan so I have no idea what’s going on. I’m scared, worried, and seriously pissed off.” You glared at the woman who sat on the phone nodding to the person on the other line, you wanted to end her now but you left your gun with your bike so she was lucky for right now.

_ “Okay, just call if anything changes soon, if not please just check in with him so he doesn’t have an anxiety attack, you know how he gets about you guys.”  _ Your heart dropped, in all your anger you forgot how much Geoff really did love you all, it was easy to forget when other emotions took over. You sighed and stared at the floor in front of you.

“Okay Jack, I’ll check in later if nothing changes, sooner if it does.”

_ “Thanks Y/N.”  _ The phone line went dead and you sighed again, you tapped your fingers impatiently on your phone waiting for anything.

Another ten minutes went by and you were about to call Geoff when you looked up at a shadow that covered you.

“Ma’am, does your brother have blond hair and wears face paint?”

“Umm, yes.”

“Was he in a car accident?”

“I don’t know that’s what I was trying to ask you earlier when he showed up.” She nodded and looked at her board.

“We’ve got a gentleman in the back who is in surgery right now; he had no ID on him and no phone as well. We’ve taken a picture of him and would like you to look at it to see if this is him?” She walked back to the desk you followed inches behind her, she pulled up a file on her computer and turned it towards you; it was Ryan, bloody, swollen, and bruised. Tears sprang to your eyes and you wiped them away quickly.

“That’s him”, your voice broke as you spoke.

“Well like I said he is in surgery right now, if you could fill out this paperwork to get some more information about him it would help us out. She handed you a clipboard with forms to fill out and sent you back to your seat. You called Geoff before filling out the forms to bring him up to speed and check in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I've been working on this story for a long time! I'm still working on my other story don't worry, but this one has been saved in the archives for a really long time and I think it's time to dust it off and show it off.


	2. Seriously?!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan's got a lot to say about your relationship with Ray.

Ryan was still healing from his car chase and work seemed to be getting harder now. Geoff was getting more on edge and Jack was right there with him, Michael seemed more aggressive than usual, Gavin wasn’t his chipper goofy self and neither was Lindsay, Ray hadn’t seemed to change except that now he was even more paranoid. We needed to end Lil J and we needed to end him now.

You stopped by Ryan’s place after your meeting with the crew, you scanned every inch of the area as you drove down the street, you waited even after parking in Ryan’s garage to leave just in case, your gun never had the safety on anymore which was something you never did. You rang up to Ryan and waited for the elevator to come down.

_ “Who is it?” _

“It’s Y/N, let me in Kerry.”

_ “What’s the password?”  _ You sighed and glared at the camera as if Kerry wasn’t watching it seeing that it was clearly you.

“Llllllllet’s play.” You felt so stupid, you wouldn’t mind if Lil J was hiding in the garage waiting to kill you. You heard the elevator make its way down and got on as soon as the doors opened. You rushed out and walked to the living room where he was usually waiting for you to check his status, he was itching to go back to work more than you all needed him back, but he wasn’t there. You looked around to Kerry and he gestured to the hallway where Ryan’s room was. You took a deep breath and walked to Ryan’s room; he was sleeping with the shades closed. You hesitantly sat beside him and checked his stitches without waking him, he was almost completely healed, you’d be able to take them out soon there was no way he was going back to the hospital.

“Ry”, you whispered and placed your hand on his shoulder. He stirred slightly but didn’t wake up. You shook him a little, still nothing.

“Come on Ry.” You shook him harder, he woke up ready for a fight, he swung his arm back and just nearly hit you, you ducked out of the way and pinned his arm against his pillow before kicking his drawer shut that his gun was laying in. He struggled against your grip and managed to break free and grab your arms pinning them behind your back, he was just inches from your face now.

“Evening”, you breathed, you hadn’t been this close to Ryan in a very long time. It took him a minute before he realized who you were.

“What are you doing here?” His voice was rough he’d clearly been sleeping all day.

“On call nurse here to check on the sick and wounded.” He let your hands go but didn’t move; his fingers brushed the side of your face bringing a blush to your cheeks.

“You were here yesterday.” You held his hand to your face and smiled.

“Well what kind of on call nurse would I be if I didn’t check on my patient?” You stood suddenly breaking away from him and walked over to his curtains, without asking his permission you through them open and let the setting sun bathe the room in crimson and orange.

“I always forget how great the view is from your room.”

“Well it’s been a while since you’ve been in here.” Your stomach flipped and you turned to smile at him as if his words hadn’t sent your heart racing.

“That’s true you’re usually waiting for me out there. Are you feeling okay?” You asked walking back over to him, you sat at the end of his bed.

“Yeah just tired, I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Why not?”

“Just a lot on my mind.” He looked to the setting sun almost completely hidden from view now and you could see the worry in his eyes.

“Ryan we’ll find him and believe me we won’t do anything without you.” You had to reassure him, he didn’t need to focus on stress he needed to focus on healing. He nodded without looking at you worry still there, you reached for his hand and squeezed.

“We would never do something to betray you Ryan we know how much this means to you now.”

“That’s not it.” He was finally looking at you in a way that made worry jump to your face.

“What is it?”

“Are you and Ray still together?” You were taken back by this, no one bothered to ask you both about what was going on they all just knew you two had been living with each other and sleeping together but you still slept in separate beds, you guys weren’t exclusively  _ together _ . You crossed your arms and stood by his dresser across from him.

“We’re not  _ not _ together.”

“So you’re sleeping with him but you’re not together.” You shrugged at his statement, what was wrong with that? Why did you have to be dating someone to sleep with them? Friends with benefits and all that fun stuff that comes with it. Ray knew that was the deal when this all started, why would that be any different now that you were back out?

“I mean yeah.”

“Do you love him?” A laugh burst out of you, you laughed when you were nervous you couldn’t help it.

“Ryan, I don’t think that Ray even loves me. We care a lot about each other, we will always have a special bond, it’s not exactly love but that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about his feelings.”

“Like our special bond?” You swallowed and you felt your face burn now. You wanted to run out, why was he doing this? You two hadn’t been together for years, way before the Lads joined the crew.

“Ryan, don’t do this.”

“I haven’t done anything I’m just asking a question.”

“We haven’t…been  _ together _ for years.” You whispered angrily at him, you didn’t need Kerry knowing and blabbing to everyone, not even Geoff or Jack knew; you two had been extremely quiet about the whole thing, even the break up. Your heart raced again at the memory of the break up, you ground your teeth together and took a breath you couldn’t let him bring all of these feelings back up. It wasn’t fair to you.

“Is that why you won’t say you’re dating?”

“Ryan”, your voice shook.

“Or why you won’t say you love him?” You felt the tears slide down and you looked away from him, the sun now gone bringing darkness into the room like it was seeping back into your heart.

“You are not being fair Ryan, we both ended this, don’t act like this was one sided.”

“It’s just different now.”

“No it’s not, everything is the same and you’ve decided it’s different”, you wiped your eyes and walked over to him, “we agreed that if we found someone in the future that we would be happy for the other, I’m sorry if me being with Ray hurts you but you will not try to intimidate him into changing how he used to be.”

“I didn’t know that I intimidated him.” His voice was low and different than before, his tone had changed completely. You grabbed is face and forced him to look at you watching how his face was slightly malicious not an ounce of worry left.

“You will not do anything, you will stay out of it, if I found out you intervened in any way shape or form, Jeremy will see like a fly in the ointment compared to the shit that I will rain down on you. Do you understand me?” You couldn’t threaten the nurse at the hospital as well as you could Ryan, she didn’t know you like he did.

“I like a challenge.”

“Ryan!” Your shout caused Kerry to come sprinting to the room gun in hand. You didn’t even look up when the door flew open.

“What’s going on?” Kerry shouted pointing his gun around the room for the danger.

“Jesus Kerry put the gun down before you shoot one of us.” You snapped still not breaking eye contact with Ryan, he just smirked and pulled your hand from his face, he stood which caused you to stumble back slightly, he towered over you, you wouldn’t let him do this to you, he could just be a bitch about the whole you weren’t going let him fuck this up for you.

“Go away Kerry”, Ryan told him. Kerry turned on his heel as if he were a dog obeying his master, when the door clicked you pushed Ryan away from you.

“I will not let you –“ Ryan grabbed your arm and pulled you to him forcefully kissing you. You tried to push him away but his grip was too strong, you knew he’d leave a bruise, something you needed to explain, something you just wouldn’t be able to do. You wouldn’t kiss him back you just stood there and let him get it out. He loosened his grip and became gentler when he realized you weren’t responding to him. His other hand held your face gently to him still in case you did try to leave now that his grip loosened. He pulled away and looked down at you, you hadn’t closed your eyes you just stared past him, he leaned back down but he didn’t kiss you again he whispered in your ear.

“You can do better than that.”

“I’m not trying Ryan, I don’t want this, I gave up fighting you”, he wasn’t deterred by your words you could see it, “notice I did say fighting you. Ryan you and I are done, it will never happen again, it will never be like it was. I have moved on and you need to too.”

“What if I changed my mind?” His hand holding your arm moved up to your shoulder and pulled you against body.

“You don’t get to change your mind, that’s not how it works. We broke up five years ago and since then I’ve found someone who can make me happy without even trying”, you poked him in the chest with your finger and pushed him back, “and one more thing, he can do things to me that you could never do. So I’ll say this one last time, stay out of my business, oh and you touch me again without my permission any more than a casual hug I will shoot you where you stand.”

“Wanna bet?” He didn’t move he just smirked at you.

“Fuck you Ryan.” You smacked him hard across the face and stormed out of the apartment. You got into your car and sped back to your apartment. You needed a shower and sleep desperately.

“Ray!” You called when you opened the door, there was no answer and sighed thankfully. Ryan had messed your head up and unwinding from him was your number one. You kicked off your shoes and threw your bag on the counter. You stripped down as you walked across your room and to your bathroom, your reflection didn’t look like you at all; the girl in the mirror her eyes were wild, her hair was messy which seemed strange since you didn’t remember Ryan ever touching your hair, her lips were bruised and puffy. Seeing your bruised lips reminded you of your bruised arm the red mark was fading and in its place was a light purple form, it would be worse in the morning. You turned the water on and climbed in once it was hot enough. The steam cleansed your pores and mind, the smell of you soap drove your thoughts away and let you just stare into nothing and be at peace, you were in paradise until a loud knock brought you back to reality.

“Yeah?” You shouted over the water and closed door.

“I’m home, I just wanted to let you know so you didn’t come out shooting when you heard someone else in the apartment.” Silence followed Ray’s voice, even the sound of the water it seemed to be fading in the distance along with the light.

“How long has it been?” You heard Lindsay ask, your arms felt heavy when you tried to lift them.

“Thirty minutes, maybe longer, I carried her out when I noticed she was in there longer than usual.” 

“She’s lucky she didn’t fucking drown”, Michael laughed his voice sounded far away.

“Shut up”, Ray snapped. Michael didn’t respond from what you could hear. You tried opening your eyes but they were heavy too, it was like you were paralyzed.

“Someone call Geoff, I’m getting worried.” Lindsay’s soft hands pressed your face she was cool to the touch.

“Where did she go tonight? You don’t think this is Jeremy do you?” Gavin voice faded and grew louder as he spoke, he must have been pacing beside you.

“Just to Ryan’s apartment from what I could tell, Kerry called me and told me she left when I was driving back.”

“Did you talk to Ryan?” Lindsay asked him. Her hands moved to your throat to check your pulse, you knew she could feel your heart racing, she moved to your wrist and checked your pulse there as well, your heart was still racing at the mention of Ryan, you tried your hardest to relax but it was hard.

“I was going to call him but I figured there wasn’t anything he could tell us that Kerry didn’t.”

“Just give him a call and see what he says.” Something moved next to you and Ray’s voice faded away. You tried your hardest to get up but nothing worked, what was wrong with you? You waited for any sound either a voice or footsteps but nothing came anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very short but it will pick back up I promise!


	3. I'm where?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You woke up very confused with the very wrong person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to say that I wrote this in 2018 in case there is any confusion about dates.

You woke up to a bright light in your eyes you couldn’t see anything at first your eyes tried to adjust but it hurt too much with the light, it was too close and bright, you sat up and swayed.

“Where am I?” You asked aloud. You looked around as your eyes slowly adjusted it didn’t feel like your bed, it didn’t look like your room, and it wasn’t the person you sometimes slept with in bed, with your stomach turning you reached over and nudged the person.

“Hmm? What did you have a bad dream?” He asked.

“Oh no, no, no, no, no. What are you doing here? What am I doing here?” You scrambled out of bed and rushed to the door, you looked at yourself and saw you were naked.

“Y/N, what is wrong with you?” Ryan asked coming to your side, you rushed away from him to find clothes. Finding a pair of shorts and shirt you threw them on and ran back to the door.

“This cannot be happening, how did you do this? Why would Ray let me out of his sight? I’m gonna kick his ass for letting them take me here.” You ranted all the way to the living room looking for your bag and phone.

“Y/N what are you talking about? Who is Ray?” Ryan asked confused reaching for you. You stopped not even looking at Ryan you looked around his apartment it was different than before but it was so familiar, you walked over to the window and opened the curtain letting the early sun light flood the living room, the city was still in its early days. Ryan hesitantly walked over to you his hands raised in surrender trying to keep you calm.

“What’s going on?” You felt panicked, tears streamed down your face, and your breathing was edging towards hyperventilation.

“That’s what I want to know. Did you have a bad dream?”

“It wasn’t a dream it was too real it couldn’t be a dream. It was so real, it was so good, no…” You broke down sobbing on the floor, you didn’t dream it all, you couldn’t have dreamt it all, every touch, every sound, every smell was so real, it couldn’t have been a dream.

“Hey, hey, hey, come here it’s going to be okay.” Ryan whispered sitting beside you pulling you in his arms.

“No it’s not I can’t be back here, I just can’t.” Ryan rubbed your back trying to calm you, his hands shook you knew he was just as scared as you were. You looked up and saw Ryan’s face clearly, he had less scars than you remembered his torso was nearly flawless. This was impossible; you’d patched him up numerous times he was supposed to have dozens of scars everywhere.

“Wait did you say who is Ray?” You pushed him back and looked at his face again.

“Yeah, you said you were going to kick his ass for bringing you here, who is that?”

“What year is it?” Ryan looked at your like you had completely lost your mind, maybe you had, you felt like you had but you needed to confirm it was really lost.

“Twenty thirteen,” he held your face and looked for any sign of damage.

“Twe...” You couldn’t finish you felt dizzy again, what was going on?

“Come on we don’t have to go to Geoff’s apartment for a few more hours, I’ll make you breakfast and you just sit here.” He guided you to the couch and put the blanket over you, he left for a while you could smell bacon cooking and coffee brewing. You saw your purse on the chair beside you and grabbed it; you hadn’t seen this purse in years after it burned in the accident. You grabbed your wallet out of it and looked at your ID, your picture was a younger version of yourself, this girl didn’t have any visible scars either, there was still happiness in her eyes; hope. You looked at the year to renew it and it was coming up soon, you were barely twenty-one.

“Holy shit”, you breathed. You put your stuff back and leaned against the couch trying to absorb what was going on, but it was just too hard. Ryan came over and handed you a cup of coffee, you took it carefully, you were still upset with what happened before, what you possibly had dreamt, but you felt had been real.

“Ryan what’s the last thing that you remember us talking about?” He paused, he looked nervous and then smiled.

“Well we talked about you moving in”, he hesitated before continuing, you knew what he was going to say next, “and that you loved me and I loved you.”

“Which explains why I as naked”, you said quietly. Ryan chuckled and sat beside you, he put his arm around you, your natural reaction was to lean against him but you couldn’t, this could not be real.

“Tell me what’s wrong?” He asked. How would you start?

“Well”, you began, “I woke up in your bed after I think fainting in my bathroom five years in the future. We had gotten in a bad argument and I think my brain couldn’t cope so I went home and was showering then I blacked out. I heard Ray, Lindsay, and Michael talking but I couldn’t respond to them and I passed out again and woke up here.”

Ryan was silent as he gauged your face trying to see if you were going crazy and then said, “did you hit your head recently?”

“I’m serious Ryan, it couldn’t have been a dream, I remember everything so vividly and then all this I know what’s going to happen! I know the next heist even before Geoff is going to present it, I know what you’re going to say when he tells you the payout. I know everything, all of this already happened. I’m not crazy stop looking at me like that!” Ryan sighed at you and looked at his hands.

“I don’t think you’re completely crazy, I think you just had a very vivid dream and maybe some déjà vu.”

“I had a five year long dream in a six hour span of time?”

“I don’t know it was your dream”, he defended.

“I know it was my dream”, you started to panic, “it felt so real Ryan, all of it. I mean the last thing I said to you was ‘fuck you’ and I hit you then went home to Ray.”

“Wait what?” He looked hurt.

“In my dream, I guess you could call it that for now, we weren’t together anymore I was with someone else, you had said and did some really hurtful things so I hit you to get my point across and I left to go home to my apartment that I shared with someone else.” He moved away from you as if it were actually true.

“So in five years we aren’t together anymore and you live with someone else?”

“Well I mean yeah when you say it like that it sounds bad.”

“How long before you dated someone else?”

“Ryan if it was a dream then it doesn’t matter.” You couldn’t believe how weird this conversation had turned, first you were practically running from him and now you were comforting him for a possible dream you had.

“How long?”

“I don’t know three and a half years, and we weren’t dating, I couldn’t date someone after us. You know how I feel about it the very idea of that word.”

“So we’re only together for another year and a half?” You didn’t want to answer, you knew you’d break up with a few months’ time and soon the Lads would join the group, how would Ryan react knowing that Ray would soon join the group and that in a few years’ time you’d be sleeping with him.

“I don’t know Ryan this all so confusing if it was a dream then none of it is true, there really is no other way to explain what’s happening.”

“I guess”, he nodded and looked at you nervously, “why do you think you couldn’t date someone after me?”

“I don’t know, I don’t want to talk about this anymore Ryan, my head is starting to hurt.” You ate your breakfast and got up to get dressed. You went over to Ryan’s dresser and you opened your drawer knowing all the clothes that you had in there. Ryan walked in and started to change in front of you, you blushed and turned away from him with a handful of clothes in your arms, you walked to his bathroom avoiding looking at him, it just felt wrong deep down to look at him naked and for him to see you naked. You dressed and stared in amazement at your body, no scars or bruises. You had only been a part of the crew for a year so far; before you started taking the blame, before you started taking the bullets.

“Y/N, ready?” Ryan asked through the door. You changed quickly and brushed your teeth, Ryan would just have to wait, this was something that never happened to anyone before they potentially went back in time, and maybe this was life telling you that you get a do over. That you could do it right with Ryan again.

“Okay let’s go.” You said once dressed, you walked over to the elevator and waited for him.

“You’re still thinking about your dream?”

“It’s hard to explain Ryan, a whole five years of what seemed like my life is just gone, five years of emotions and senses just ripped from me and plopped me back down into this.”

“Is this bad?”

“No! I didn’t mean it that way it’s just…”, you wanted desperately for him to understand what you were going through but you couldn’t he didn’t just have everything change so suddenly and turn out to be a dream, “I’m sorry I said that, it’s all so confusing.”

“It’s okay”, he shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets. You knew then that you had hurt his feelings. You reached for him and he smiled accepting the hug.

“I’ll work through this.” You felt like you were promising more than you could handle, but you had to try. If this was your real life now than you would make it work with Ryan, you knew all what was going to happen and you knew that you needed to be with him. You still cared about Ray a part of you did but Ray wasn’t going to be arriving to your crew for another few months around the time you and Ryan were supposed to break up.

“Just shake it off, it was just a dream and we’ll always be together. Trust me.” He kissed the top of your head and hugged you harder like he was trying to reassure himself now.

“I know.” When the doors opened you half expected to see all his fancy bikes and cars but all he had was his silver Gauntlet he got rid of that one as soon as he could, it was surprisingly nice to see it again. You jumped into your yellow Dominator, another car you hadn’t seen in a while, and sped out of there, it may have been five years since you’d been together with him but you still knew that you two couldn’t be found together, not yet.

Once you got to Geoff’s apartment you parked and went up immediately, you couldn’t wait for Ryan it would look too suspicious. The doors opened and you smiled, you started to like this walk down memory lane, you saw Geoff and Jack sitting on the couch laughing, real laughter. It had been a while since you’d seen them genuinely laughing, after all the heists that you all had done they started losing their happiness, they were the top dogs they couldn’t be seen as weak and that meant no laughter.

“Hey guys”, you greeted, they smiled when you sat down on the arm chair beside them.

“You look happy.” Geoff’s smile seemed to be more knowing than you remembered.

“I’m good, a little confused but good.”

“Confused?” Jack asked.

“Yeah I had a really strange dream, I’m still not convinced fully it was a dream, but then again what would this be, anyways it’s a whole thing that it’s hard to explain.”

“Umm...” Geoff looked at Jack the way Ryan looked at you this morning when you explained the dream, you knew that you sounded crazy to them and you didn’t want to have to explain to them about it so you just laughed.

“I just had a stupid dream and it made my brain stupid.” The doors opened to the elevator and Ryan walked out. He walked with pride and swagger as if he’d had the best night of his life and maybe he did.

“Mornin’”, Geoff smiled. He definitely knew something, maybe he always had and you had just been too blind to notice. That was something to delve into later.

“Morning, what’s on the agenda for today?” Ryan asked sitting on the couch with them. The way you two were together was very different compared to how you were with Ray. Another thing to delve into later.

“We’re gonna do a little recon.”

“Wait what?” You were thrown threw a loop, he was supposed to talk about the bank heist one of the first biggest payouts you guys did as a crew, it was just some low level gas station heists to begin with, why did it change?

“Recon, you know short for reconnaissance.” Geoff started laughing at the look on your face.

“No I know what it means, but I mean we usually do heists aren’t we gonna do that?” Geoff looked at Jack and shrugged.

“We were thinking about hitting up the bank, but I feel like we might need more people for that.”

“We could probably do it with four.”

“I don’t know, I think we need more, I’ve got my eye on a few guys that I think would be a good idea for this crew.” You stomach dropped you knew the few that he was talking about but it was so soon for them to join, sooner than you remembered.

“Like who?” Ryan asked, he glanced at you knowing what you were thinking.

“Just a couple of guys, we’ll each watch one.”

“So there are four you want to bring in?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah”, Geoff nodded, “Ray Narvaez Jr goes by BrownMan or X-Ray, Michael Jones goes by MJones or Mogar, Gavin Free goes by GavinoFree or Vav, and Jeremy Dooley goes by JDoolz or Lil J.”

“Wait Jeremy Dooley, I thought he was part of another crew in Liberty City?” The three men on the couch looked at you in confusion you weren’t supposed to know that kind of information yet.

“Yeah, he was but made his way up here recently.” You shifted in your seat, why was this all happening so quickly. This couldn’t be right.

“How’d you know that?” Jack asked.

“I saw him on a wanted poster in the police station.” Technically, it was true you were just a few years ahead of yourself.

“When?” Ryan asked.

“I stopped by a while ago to see if our faces had come up yet and he was on their board.” You added nonchalantly, you had to stop drawing attention to yourself you just needed to go with the flow.

“Okay”, Geoff continued, he looked to Ryan for an explanation but Ryan wouldn’t meet his eye, “like I said we’ll each take one guy and watch him for a while before approaching.”

“I’ll take Ray”, Ryan said quickly, you looked at him nervously, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together so of course the second that name came up Ryan was going to jump at the chance to watch him.

“I’ll take Gavin”, Jack said.

“I’ll take Michael then”, you said as you shrugged. Michael was easy, not as easy as Gavin, but he’d be easy to watch, Ray would be harder than the two he was stealthy even as a rookie.

“No I want you to watch Jeremy Y/N, Michael is known to be aggressive.” You glared at Geoff how dare he just assume you wouldn’t be able to handle Michael.

“Are you saying I can’t take him because I’m too weak?”

“No! That’s not it at all, I just want you to watch Jeremy because he’s one of the hardest guys to pin point.”

“You pin pointed him he can’t be that hard to watch.”

“Y/N please, don’t be difficult, you’ve proved that you’re strong enough and skilled enough to be on this crew, I didn’t mean anything by it, if something went wrong and Michael started shooting I didn’t want you to get hurt, I wouldn’t want to have to explain that to…well you know what I mean by it.”

“What are you talking about Geoff?”

“You guys seriously can’t think that you’re fooling us right?” Jack asked. You looked at Ryan and he looked as confused as you had felt.

“We know you two are together”, Geoff sighed. Ryan just stared at him, you thought you both had been so careful, no touching in front of them, no sneaking away together, taking separate cars to and from Geoff’s apartment, not even a stolen glance or outward flirting.

“You guys are the worst at keeping it a secret you leave within minutes of each other and show up within minutes of each other. You’re both conveniently busy when the other is and you’re always happy when you show up to work, even Jack isn’t that happy coming in and he’s a glass half full kind of person.”

“Look we talked about it and we’re happy for you both, if you can keep it professional on the job which you’ve shown you can then I don’t give a shit what you do. I mean it was bound to happen anyways, considering how you two met.”

“Hey that was all business”, Ryan said quickly. You felt the blood rush to your face at the memory, so you started out dancing and nearly kicked Ryan’s ass walking home, that didn’t mean you were meant to end up together.

“Sure Ryan, but we need to get back to the mission at hand here, everyone take their file, study it, and go find their target, do not engage just follow them.”

“Fine”, you pretended to look at Jeremy’s file, nothing had changed except for his time as a criminal you knew everything already. You got up and started to make your way to the elevator, no one questioned it your photographic memory was such a handy tool.

“Be careful”, Ryan called to you before the doors closed, you smiled and made your way to the garage. You hadn’t had a moment to really think, the car ride over was so quick it was hard to process what was even going on, but you’d be out all day by yourself just following Jeremy you would finally get a chance to think about your situation.

If this was life really giving you a second chance, why now? Why rip you away from something that made you happy to another point in your life you tried not to remember because it was too painful to? What did this all mean? You knew you’d never get a chance to answer all your questions, not unless someone came down from above and told them to you, since that wasn’t likely you’d spend the rest of your life trying to figure it out.

You drove to where Jeremy’s hideout was he was easier to find than in the future, you chalked that up to less experience. You waited down the street from his hangout and watched for him to come out hopefully still in a similar outfit as his future one, you could see his orange and purple car from where you sat, so even if you didn’t spot him at first you’d be able to see his car pull out. You only had to wait thirty minutes before he walked out to his car his outfit was similar but he didn’t wear the cowboy hat and sunglasses. You followed behind him with six cars in between always turning off a street ahead or behind where he turned to keep him off your scent he was easy to follow. Your phone started ringing you almost answered it when you slammed your breaks suddenly, you’d been so focused on keeping your distance that you didn’t realize where you were going or that he had stop his car in the middle of the road and was waiting for you leaning against his car. He was shorter up close you had only seen him from a distance and even though his file had said he was five foot four inches he didn’t seem like that, maybe it was the way he held himself that he looked taller. You sat in your car holding his eyes like a snake and its’ prey one sudden movement and it would start of frenzy, you just needed to figure out which one you were, right now it seemed like prey. You couldn’t just sit there, Geoff had said not to engage but he knew you were following him, it was now or never, you needed to take a chance and recruit him.

“Jeremy Dooley”, you said once you climbed out of your car, you had taken your gun from your car and tucked it behind your back before getting out.

“Who’s askin’?” He called to you, his arms were crossed but you knew better you’d seen his reflexes you knew what he was capable of.

“My name is Y/N, I’m here to talk to you about joining my crew”, you just threw all caution to the wind.

“ _Your_ crew?” You ignored how his voice had inflected at the word ‘your’ as if you couldn’t run a crew of your own. This was no time to deal with sexism though.

“Yeah The Fake AH Crew, we’ve been watching you for a while now, we like your style and want you to join us.”

“You haven’t been watching me, I would’ve noticed. Trust.”

“Or maybe I wanted you to notice me.” He laughed and uncrossed his arms.

“Yeah sure, why should I join your crew?”

“Have you heard of us? You can imagine what the payout is any heist we do, your skills would be a valuable asset to the team.”

“So you need someone with a fresh face, someone who isn’t rusty at pulling the trigger?”

“We need someone who can shoot long distance without leaving a trace.”

“Interesting, I thought you already had a shot like that on your crew, from what I’ve heard at least.”

“What all have you heard?” You waited patiently as he crossed over to you a smile still on his face.

“Your president, though skilled in a sense fails to be an accurate and reliable marksman, he’s better at the planning I assume. Your VP is your best sniper but clearly not good enough if you’re looking for someone else to replace him.” He held up his hand before you could tell him he was wrong about replacing Jack.

“That leaves the last guy in your group, he’s your wild card, loves chaos but could be so much more given the chance, he’s the best out of all of you but for some reason has a leash on him.”

“So if you knew about my crew why’d you bother to stop and talk to me?”

“I’m not done yet I’ve still got to critique your skills.”

“Go ahead.”

“You’re the only female perhaps that makes you feel the need to prove yourself, which undoubtedly makes you the best fighter”, he was now circling you like the prey, “but you don’t have one hundred percent trust yet which makes you reckless to prove yourself.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because they wouldn’t let you follow Michael.” You grabbed your gun and aimed straight at his head, he was taken off guard slightly but recovered quickly before laughing.

“Did I hurt your feelings?”

“How did you know about that conversation?”

“You think that your boss just decided to start ‘watching’ us?” You circled Jeremy as he circled you, his hands were in his pocket he had no fear of being shot as if he knew you weren’t going to. You’d do anything to protect your crew hadn’t that been established by going to jail numerous times, which all those times had happened in your dream.

“You’re telling me you guys somehow convinced Geoff to start following you all?” It sounded dumb when you said it aloud.

“We made ourselves known and the first crew to notice was the first crew we chose to follow, which was you guys.”

“You chose us? So you all are a crew?”

“Well yes and no, Gavin and Michael were together pulling stupid stunts, Ray found them later and I found them after, we’re the Lads.” You couldn’t help the small smile that rose on your face, that’s what they had called themselves when they joined your crew.

“Okay, so you’re their leader?”

“Fuck no, Michael and Gavin fight about it all the time, but as Michael says ‘he’s the leader of the Lads fuck whatever Gavin says’.”

“Yeah that sounds like Michael.” You had said it before you realized what you were saying. Jeremy didn’t seem to care though, you lowered your gun and tucked it behind you again.

“So what are we gonna do now?”

“I want to meet Geoff.”

“For what reason?”

“He makes the decisions.”

“Yes I’m aware of that, but what I meant by that was are you wanting to join the crew?”

“We’ll see how this meet goes.” You nodded in agreement and got back in your car.

“Keep up.” You sped off down the road leaving a trail of dust behind you seeing as he already knew where you were going you didn’t have to wait for him to actually catch up.

You pulled into the garage and waited outside for Jeremy. You took him upstairs and weren’t surprised to see all the rest of the Lads sitting around with your crew talking quietly. Ryan was watching you, you could see he was tense and the reason why was sitting right beside him, your eyes fell on Ray and it was like your heart stopped, it seemed like years since you had seen him, in your crazy day that you’d been having you couldn’t stop secretly missing him. He was on edge as well and when he met your eyes there was no feeling behind it you knew immediately that this wasn’t a dream, it couldn’t be.

“Well now that we’re all here let’s get to work.”

“Hold on, I want to know how this all really happened”, Ryan said still irritated. You sat beside him and held his hand showing him that it was all different that no matter what dream you had had you’d be with him and only him this wasn’t _your_ Ray. Geoff went on for an hour explaining what was happening and as much as you didn’t want to trust Jeremy because of your dream you agreed on the vote to let them in. You talked with Gavin and Michael already knowing so much about them and fell right into friendship again, you wouldn’t speak to Ray you didn’t think that you could without getting feelings for him it would be too hard.

“Do you think what you had was some kind of vision?” Ryan asked on your way back to his apartment, you had left your car at Geoff’s place and since they knew about you two there was no reason to hide it now, which Ryan seemed to appreciate.

“I don’t know what it was, how could I have a vision that was five years’ worth day for day? I mean I wouldn’t think that a vision would include all my time spent in jail, leaving you and being with Ray.” Ryan tensed at the mention of Ray.

“Where does that leave you with him?”

“It’s different Ryan. Gavin, Michael, and Ray didn’t join the group for another few months this year in my dream and before I woke up we were all fighting Jeremy like gunfights planning on how to eliminate him. This isn’t how this was supposed to go.”

“I saw how you looked at him.”

“Ryan please don’t do this, I don’t understand what’s going on. I told you I love you, I never told him that because I couldn’t.”

“Do you still love me?” You looked down at your hands intertwined with his, you could learn to love him again but for now, you needed to lie.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? The way you were this morning whatever I had done in your dream seemed to really affect you.”

“It was just a dream, I still love you.” You could do this with him, do it right this time, you wouldn’t give up on him even it meant losing Ray. That thought hurt you the most; you two had been good for each other always having each other’s backs in a fight and a vote. You were there to console him and he was there when you needed someone to hold you. You were with him longer than you had been with Ryan and that was hard to forget photographic memory or not.

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this and like where this is going. As i originally wrote this chapter....so freaking long ago...I didn't really know where it was going, but I feel like as the story goes on it gets better, or more confusing. I guess you all can let me know. :)))


	4. Back to the old life?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're asked to do something that you never wanted to again.

Having your whole crew back together was like filling a missing piece of your soul it just felt like things were normal again. You and Ryan had worked things out for the better you were happy with him again and he seemed even more like the Ryan you fell in love with than the Ryan you knew from your dream.  You were back to planning heists except now you were more careful you weren’t going to lose time with your crew. You hadn’t spoken much to Ray even though it had been weeks since you brought them in, you wanted to keep your distance to let the feelings fade before you talked to him. You could tell Ryan was still worried that you loved Ray but you wouldn’t do that to him not when he was so happy. A part of you was happy too you did grow to love Ryan more again but still you ached for Ray.

“Y/N come in here.” You looked at Geoff you were laughing from talking with Ryan and nodded. Ryan walked with you to Geoff’s back room and waited for Jack to arrive, but he was not alone.

“Ryan I don’t need you here for this”, Geoff told him gesturing for him to leave.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Ryan we talked about this before you both had shown you wouldn’t let  _ this _ affect you working, now if it is suddenly going to be a problem then we have a bigger issue on our hands.” Ryan glared at Geoff but before he could say something you squeezed his hand to get his attention.

“Don’t”, you whispered. He looked at you and the fire simmered behind his eyes he sighed and then left without a word.

“I have a mission for the both of you. I need you to go undercover.”

“Why me?” You asked Geoff not even looking at Ray.

“Because, I need an experienced member to go with him.”

“And you chose me, because?”

“When I say experienced I mean in that particular field.” You were even more confused now, who didn’t have the same experience as you? You waited for him to elaborate.

“The dancing field”, Jack added when Geoff wouldn’t answer your confused look.

“Are you serious? Geoff I haven’t been there for years. How am I supposed to just turn up and be a dancer again? And what does he have to do with it?” You were frustrated now how could he ask you to go back you left that life for a reason.

“I’ve set it up for you to come back story and all he’s going to be your hired body guard.”

“He’s so young Geoff, why can’t Jack or Ryan do it, hell even you!” You couldn’t believe this was happening.

“We’ve got other assignments, just take a minute and think about it, here’s the file.” He handed you the blue folder and you scanned through it quickly. You had given up dancing in the first place because it was so dangerous which was how you became who you were today, you learned to fight and shoot for that reason. You left it all behind because you got into some deep shit with a big time drug dealer that Ryan ended up killing. He had infiltrated the group working his way into the inner circle where you had ended up giving personal lap dances to whomever you were told to, Ryan had been chosen one night and in one minute, you knew he didn’t belong. You thought he was a cop at first even when you talked with him he sounded like a cop but you kept your mouth shut, you wanted out and he was your ticket, what you hadn’t expected was for him to follow you home where you ended up sneak attacking him in an alley. He told you everything about him and the plan that night, he could see that you didn’t belong there either and he wanted to help so in return for helping you escape you helped him get the drop of the boss and kill him. Ryan was your knight in shining armor taking you away from a life of drugs and death to a life of…well death but a more controlled death, you were the one killing the bad guys rather than the good ones.

Your story came with a new identity Skye Isles, which helped you because it already sounded like a dancer’s stage name. Small town girl hoping to make it in the big city as an actress, typical movie plot, nothing too suspicious, you could add lib most of the story since you’d already dealt in that life. You had to work your way to the top again.

“I’ll be recognizable to any club I go to.”

“You’ll have to get a makeover”, Jack agreed.

“Done”, Geoff said finalizing the plan.

“Ray will come in later to be your body guard”, he told you then looked at Ray very seriously, “you will have to work your way to the top. Then convince them to place you with her, once that’s done you’ll let us know and we’ll come in to stomp them out.” You took a deep breath and nodded to Geoff, and left without another word. You walked over to Ryan and handed him the folder, he was angry but with a few words of reasoning you got him to calm down.

“He won’t be able to protect you, not like I can.”

“I know, but we have to trust Geoff’s judgment, on the upside I get a new look and who knows maybe I can give you another lap dance, if you’re good.”

“I think I might actually like this plan.” He smiled and kissed you, someone behind you cleared their throat breaking you both apart.

“Can I talk to you?” Ray asked Ryan. Your breathing sped up and you looked at Ryan nervously, he just smiled and nodded.

“Don’t kill him please, he’s part of the plan”, you whispered to him before he left.

“Hey who are you talking to here”, Ryan laughed as he walked away.

“Exactly!” The two left and you felt sick. You started talking with Gavin to get your mind off it but it didn’t really help.

“So you used to be a dancer?”

“Yes, why do you want me to show you some moves?” Gavin swallowed, you couldn’t help but laugh at how easy he was to make nervous, nothing had changed.

“When you mean show me, wha-“ Ryan and Ray came back and you left Gavin sweating before he could finish his sentence. You crossed your arms at the comradery that seemed to be developing between the two.

“It’s all good. Ray just wanted me to know how he was going to protect you at all cost, that’s it.”

“That’s nice and all but Ryan can tell you that I don’t need protecting. I’ve done this before.” 

“He’s just being nice, retract the claws kitty.” You glared at Ryan, a few weeks ago you knew he was ready to kill the kid if he would even dare look at you in an admiring way, and now he was best buds with him all because he told Ryan he’d look out for me. Either Ryan was playing nice or Ray was really good at convincing people, and you had known neither of them was any good at that.

“Alright, fine.” You help your hands up in surrender, you’d get to the bottom of this either way and playing dumb was how you were going to have to fight.

***

Month four seemed to be the hardest month for you, you hadn’t managed to get into good graces with the boss, and Ray was already in his circle. Maybe you were losing your edge.

“This is fucking stupid I should be where he is!” You whispered angrily to Ryan, you were both in the private dance room in the club pretending to give Ryan a lap dance.

“Just give it some more time.”

“I hate this job, it’s so disgusting, and listening to the new girls who come through who are so excited about it, it’s infuriating. I’m not a dancer anymore I’m a fighter.”

“You’re also a criminal. Maybe you’ve been too focused on being a dancer that you haven’t shown them that you can roll with the punches.”

“What else can I do Ryan?”

“What you did before.” You had been peering out the curtain and your head snapped back in when he said that.

“I will not use anymore. I have been clean for two years”, you growled at him.

“Okay I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have suggested that, but you’ve got to figure something out I don’t want you to be here anymore either. I want you at home.” He pulled you over onto his lap and held you there.

“I know, the apartment Geoff set me up in is even more disgusting than this place, which is very hard to believe but it is.”

“I was more meaning that I  _ want _ you,” your heart raced, you hadn’t necessarily had sex with Ryan for a very long time not technically. He kissed your neck moving up to your ear his breath hot against your skin, “don’t you want me?”

Your breath came quicker as his hands move from your waist to one hand placed firmly on your lower back to the other cupping your breast, rubbing softly through your bra. He continued to kiss your neck biting and sucking at your flesh. You gripped his shirt when he moved his hand that was cupping your breast to your clit and rubbed it. He leaned back slightly and smirked, you glared and reached behind him removing his gun from its holster and placing it on the small table beside you.

“Safety first.” You said before kissing him and slowly unbuttoning his shirt. You did miss the way Ryan touched you, it was different than Ray, when you had told Ryan in your dream that Ray did things to you that he couldn’t you were being truthful, but Ryan could do things that Ray couldn’t even imagine doing to you. Your hands roamed his all too familiar chest you loved the way he felt you knew what he liked like it was second nature to you. Your nails raked his chest earning you a groan, which distracted him and made him slip up while rubbing you.

“You alright? Need me to show you how it’s done, I know it’s been a while but I’m willing to show you if you’re too inexperienced.” Teasing Ryan was almost as easy as teasing Gavin, but Ryan wasn’t one to get nervous, he was the kind of person that was an Alpha Male and would dominate any situation if challenged.

“I’ll show you something.” He held you tight against him and stood up pinning you to the wall. He set you down and turned your around, he gripped your hips and pulled you back against him, you could feel his bulge in his pants. He lowered your panties and began rubbing you again slipping a finger inside of you.

“Fuck Ryan.” He slipped another finger inside you and rubbed faster, he hadn’t even got to actually fucking you and you already felt like you could cum.

“Are you close?” His rough voice in your ear, you nodded your legs were shaking in anticipation. He took his fingers out and pulled you back to the chair. He sat down and let you unzip his pants and lower his boxers; you took his member in your hands and rubbed him slowly building up a rhythm listening to him moan in approval. When he was close you climbed on top of him and lowered yourself slowly watching his face grow impatient and finally pushing you down onto him in frustration. The moan you let out was louder than you had intended, you laughed quietly after waiting a minute to see if anyone was going to check on you.

“Ride me.” Ryan’s husky voice so quiet but so loud in that room, it was like the world out there didn’t exist anymore there was nothing except Ryan in this moment, everything felt electric under your fingertips. You started moving with Ryan’s hands guiding you for the speed he needed, you pushed his hands off of you and moved one hand to your clit and the other you held in yours letting your fingers intertwine.

“I’m almost there”, you breathed against Ryan’s neck. He rubbed faster and you moved faster against him, you reached the edge and tipped your head back as you came. He removed his hand and held you to him his nails scratching your back as he followed right behind you. He brought the hand that was holding yours up and kissed the back of your hand before kissing you gently.

“Skye! You’re up next! Where are you?” The club owner was calling for you, he sounded pissed off. You got of Ryan slowly knowing how sensitive he was right now; you pulled your panties back on and fixed your hair and outfit before stepping out into the hallway.

“I’m here, I was just giving a customer a lap dance.”

“Get out there, you’re next.”

“I’ll be right there.” You watched him leave and ducked behind the curtain to where Ryan was finishing cleaning himself up. You grabbed his gun and handed it to him.

“Safety first”, Ryan chuckled holstering it again.

“You better get back to Geoff and I better get on stage before I don’t have a job anymore.” Ryan kissed you softly once more before you left to change quickly and got on stage. You zoned out a lot as you danced you didn’t want to see the faces of all the sweaty men that stared at you having wet dreams of the things they wished they could do with you, things that you were just doing with the man that was sneaking out of the front doors at that moment. You caught his eye just as he turned to leave and winked at him. Your eyes slid across the room looking past all the greedy faces onto one whose eyes couldn’t leave your dancing form.

Ray had never seen you as a dancer even in your dream life, he never knew about that part of your past, you had asked the Gents not say anything to the rest of the crew. His eyes watched you hungrily, you’d seen that look on numerous occasions, he licked his lips and shifted his weight to wear he was hidden behind the table you just smirked at him fighting the laugh that threatened to break free, you knew what he was trying to hide. Men were sometimes too easy. The song ended and with one last round of dollars flying onto the stage you left to go and change back into regular clothes, your shift was over at least it ended on a good note for once.

“Uhh, Skye?” Ray’s voice said from behind the curtain.

“Yeah?”

“Are you dressed?” You opened the curtain startling him. You laughed and walked out with your bag over your shoulder towards the entrance.

“The boss wants to see you”, he said grabbing your arm to stop you. It was like electricity shooting through your body, you gasped and pulled away from him, he was shocked too judging by the look on his face.

“Let’s go”, you said ignoring the feeling and moving past him.

“Hold on, there’s something you should know.”

“What?” He moved in front of you blocking your line of sight from the boss.

“He talked with the club owner and said he wanted to pay to spend some time with you, alone.”

“Okay so I give him a dance big deal, it’s no different than any of the other creeps I dance for.”

“He doesn’t want a dance.”

“No way, no job is worth this bullshit. He can fuck off and so can Geoff if he thinks that I’m going to cheat on Ryan with a grubby little man who thinks he’s king of the mountain.”

“I haven’t said anything to Geoff, just wait here and I’ll call him, we’ll figure out something else.” You sat down at the bar and ordered a few rounds of shots for yourself. Ray came back ten minutes later to a slightly tipsy version of you.

“Geoff said it was up to you, he understands if you don’t want to do it, but he said Ryan would understand too if you moved forward with this.”

“The fuck Ryan would, he was upset just bringing you into the group knowing how I felt about you. He’d lose his shit if I went and fucked someone for the job. Then again he did want me to get back on drugs if that meant I’d get into the inner circle faster so who knows at this point.” You slammed down another shot and walked over to the group of men before Ray could stop you.

“You wanted to see me?” Ray caught up to you finally; he looked at you like you were crazy.

“Skye Isles, I’ve paid your boss a few thousand dollars to spend some time with you.”

“How gracious of you, what does this time with you entail?”

“Let’s just wait and see about that. I’ll let you know when I’m ready for you.”

“My shift is done; I’d like to go home.”

“I’ll tell you when you can go home.” You ground your teeth, slightly tipsy you was turning into very drunk you quickly as the alcohol spread through your blood stream, you had to bite back your comment if you wanted to get into the inner circle.

“Okay.” You sat down at their table and waited for him to decide when it was time. Ray sat close to you and kept glancing at you as if you were a crazy person on the subway; waiting for the attack.

“What?” You snapped tired of his glances.

“You’re drunk”, he whispered.

“Thank you captain obvious, that’s what alcohol does to you.”

“I’m just saying maybe you aren’t in the right state of mind to be doing this. Why don’t you take a minute and go outside and call Ryan.”

“Why? This is what everyone really wants. There’s no point in arguing”, you whispered angrily.

“Geoff said you didn’t have to do this, go call Ryan and see what he says. If he says go for it, which if he really loves you he won’t, then go ahead. But I personally don’t think you should do this, I’m already in you don’t have to be anymore.” You blinked and looked at your hands even in your drunk state you knew he was right.

“I need to make a phone call.” You told the large man sitting opposite you his beady eyes watched the dancer on the pole.

“Tafkar take her outside.” He waved you both away and you followed Ray outside. He gave you his phone and you called Ryan.

_ “Hello?” _ He sounded as if you had woken him.

“I’ve got an in to the inner circle.”

_ “That’s great! What is it?” _

“He wants me to sleep with him Ryan.” You slurred your words slightly.

_ “Is that why you’re drunk?” _

“I mean yeah, but I think that’s more about the idea of it.”

_ “Are you going to?” _

“Should I?”

_ “What did Geoff say?” _

“He said that he would understand if I didn’t, but in the end it was up to me. I don’t want to Ryan but if you want me to I will.”

_ “I would never want you to do anything you didn’t want to Y/N. I don’t want you to do this.” _

“Thank you.” You hung up the phone and walked back inside you went straight to your boss and pushed him.

“Who the fuck do you think you are bitch?”

“I quit you disgusting piece of shit. You can suck his dick for the few grand he paid to sleep with me, if you think that you can just let any one of these girls sleep with someone who pays the right price in your eyes you have another thing coming. You can fuck right off you spaffy little prick.” You turned on your heel and stormed out of the club, Ray was laughing as you left. You jumped in your car and made it halfway to Ryan’s house when your phone went off you opened the text and laughed.

**_I think you’ve been hanging around Gavin too much._ **

**Yeah well spaffy little prick was the worst thing I could call him right now.**

**_Boss is pissed. Geoff will just have to deal with it. I’m glad you didn’t do it._ **

**So am I. Thank you for talking me out of it.**

**_Ryan helped you too._ **

**I know, but thank you anyways.**

**_You’re welcome. Have a good night. I’ll see you tomorrow._ **

**Good night Ray.**

You made it to Ryan’s house and sprinted to the elevator practically jumping up and down waiting for the doors to finally open; when they did you ran into Ryan’s room and jumped on him.

“Holy shit!” He shouted grabbing you and pinning you onto his bed.

“You’re not as quick as I thought you were.”

“What are you doing here? You nearly gave me heart attack”, his said with a panicked voice was, he grabbed his chest letting you go in the process.

“I came straight here after telling my boss to go fuck himself.”

“You did what?” Ryan laughed.

“He’s a disgusting little rat and if I was going to end my mission after four months of hard labor I was going to end it on my terms.”

“Fair enough, I’m glad you called me. I’m sorry you were put in that situation, I can’t believe that your boss did that to you, I should just go down there and kill him now.”

“At least wait until we kill the real target. Now I’ve had a very long tiring day I’m going to shower and go to sleep.”

“Do you need help?” Ryan asked getting up with you.

“Well you’re already up so you might as well make yourself useful.”


	5. Here we go again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to the start again.

Ray had suffered a few minor hiccups since you had left the club, they beat him to a pulp for recommending you, and got sent down the ranks where he had to work his way back up. You patched him up apologizing every step of the way to the point where he was just laughing at how many times you had said you were sorry. Luckily, they didn’t break any ribs just a few cracks that you taped up and no major contusions to his head, you didn’t want to have to take him to the hospital too many questions and not enough right answers to keep him out of trouble. He was still undercover six months later, this job had gone on for almost a full year now, you weren’t making any money, you all were on edge waiting for Ray’s signal, and most of all you were sick to your stomach.

“I don’t want the flu anymore, take it.” You were wrapped in Ryan’s sheets with tissues scattering the floor around you.

“Just ride it out, you’ve only been sick for a few days, can’t be too much longer.”

“You’re not the one with the medical degree.”

“Yeah, ‘medical degree’.” He added quotations as he spoke.

“Alright next time you get shot I’m not fixing you.” You wrapped the covers tighter around you as you shivered from the sickness.

“Okay”, he kissed your forehead and left you to try and sleep but you couldn’t your body hurt too much, you were shivering constantly, and your face felt like you’d been stung by a thousand bees. You rolled around a few minutes longer and let sleep take you over.

***

 

You woke up with your head throbbing, you felt horrible the sickness still hadn’t left your body apparently.

“Ry”, you whispered hoarsely, you needed water badly.

“Y/N? I’m here”, it wasn’t Ryan’s voice that had answered you.

“Wha- Who?” You tried to turn around but the person’s arms wrapped around you tightly.

“Hey its okay, do you need to sit up?” You finally managed to break free and look at who was in bed with you, scrambling out of bed you managed to get ahold of the dresser for support.

“No fucking way”, your throat was so dry it was hard to talk.

“What, are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere?” Ray asked you.

“No, this can’t be happening, not again that was supposed to be real but you’re telling me this one is real instead?” You pinched your arms trying to wake up, you closed your eyes and thought really hard about being back in Ryan’s bed sick, you’d give anything for that to be true right now. You couldn’t deal with this, you had spent months forgetting Ray and going back to Ryan and now you were with Ray again and Ryan was being a complete douche bag? You felt light headed; Ray rushed to your side holding you up in case you fell.

“No please don’t, I can’t handle this, I’m not strong enough.”

“Y/N please what is wrong? I don’t know how to help you”, Ray rushed his words he was beginning to panic. You reached for your phone on the nightstand and dialed Ryan’s number.

“Hello?” He sounded sleepy.

“Ry what is the last thing I said to you?”

“Y/N? What the fuck it’s like two in the morning and you called me just to ask what we talked about two days ago?”

“Two days ago!” You looked at Ray panicked, he just had his arms out unsure of what to do.

“Yeah, what is your problem?”

“The last thing I told you was ‘fuck off’, right?” You needed to try to figure out what was going on you couldn’t keep doing this you had to figure out what was real and what wasn’t.

“Yes why?”

“I think I’m going crazy. I’ll talk to you later.” You hung up and looked at Ray. He was stood in his spot still frozen.

“What is going on?” He finally asked.

“If I tell you you’ll think I’m crazy.” You couldn’t do that again you told Ryan in your dream and that didn’t go well, how would Ray react knowing you went back to Ryan, but it wasn’t real…was it?

“Okay let’s just take it easy for a second sit down, I’ll get you some water and something to eat I’m sure you’re hungry.” He left and you felt a panic attack starting.

“Okay here, just drink this, I got Tylenol in case your head hurts, you were in and out there for a bit, we moved you here so you’d be comfortable. I’m sorry that I was in bed with you, I just didn’t want you to wake up alone.” Ray said handing you a glass and a tray of assorted foods and a bottle of Tylenol.

“It’s fine, thank you.”

“So about all that earlier, what happened?” He asked after you had finished the sandwich that he made for you.

“I remember passing out and hearing you all talking but then nothing, it was all black and I woke up in a different time, it was years ago before you guys joined the crew, and I was in bed with Ryan. It was weird, when I woke up, I thought it was you and when I found out it was Ryan I freaked out I was running around his apartment like a crazy person. I started to think it was real after a while, I was living this dream for over a year, we did heists and jobs, you all joined in a completely different way than you were supposed to, and Jeremy was part of our crew. I talked to him and everything which was hard to do after what had happened with Ryan.” Ray just stared at you not talking until he knew you were done talking.

“I told Ryan about what I had thought been a dream, about us, and when you joined the crew he didn’t trust you at first.” You couldn’t tell him about how you stayed with Ryan that would hurt him.

“That’s a crazy dream.”

“Well that’s what I had thought about this life, it took a while for me to accept that my new dream was reality and then this happens so I don’t know what to believe anymore. I’m scared and confused.”

“Well I can assure you this isn’t a dream.”

“How?”

“Because I know it isn’t, shit it might be my dream if anything, but it isn’t yours, you wouldn’t dream of this, you wouldn’t dream of being with me”, Ray muttered.

“Fuck you, don’t say that. I chose to be with you for a reason Ray, I wanted to be with you in my dream world, it was hard not to.”

“You were still with Ryan weren’t you”, he didn’t ask you, he just knew. You nodded in response but took his hands, you needed this to be real you couldn’t be going crazy.

“Ray please understand that I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I know, it was just a dream, it’s not like you were really with him.” Even though it had felt like it had been real, every bit of it, you had forced yourself to forget him for Ryan’s sake because that’s what you thought was real. However, here he was sitting in front of you his hands in yours with worry etched on his face, a person whose heart you could not break because he was the last person who deserved that. You had forced yourself to not care about him and you had done a very good job at acting like it and convincing yourself that you didn’t care but the moment your eyes were lain on him, the real him, it had all come back to you.

“I love you Ray, no matter what happens no matter where my head goes I love you.” Those words had never felt truer until that very moment, you cared for him before but now seeing him here you realized that you had loved him all along you just needed some encouragement.

Ray brushed his fingertips against your cheek and smiled.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You smiled and held his hand to your face, you both sat there in silence just looking at each other, it was the longest you both had gone without saying a word to each other that didn’t occur when you were sleeping. You could have sat there forever, you didn’t want to go back to your dream world, you liked this one you were torn. 

A part of you loved Ryan and it was easy and familiar like riding a bike, but another part of you loved Ray and it was a little bumpy but you loved the excitement that he brought to the table. You both had your days where you argued but you would have amazing makeup sex anytime anywhere. You and Ryan had only ever had sex in a place that wasn’t your home twice and one of them you weren’t really sure if it was real. Nevertheless Ryan was your first love and that was something that would stick with you forever, you would always care for him and put him before yourself you had proved that by willingly be shot by the police when he was unconscious.

“I love you too, you can’t imagine how happy I am that you finally said that I fell for you the moment I saw you I was just too scared to say anything, I know that it wasn’t easy for you to say after what happened with Ryan so I gave you space to figure out how you felt.”

“I appreciate it Ray.” You looked at your phone, you wanted to talk to Ryan you needed to figure out what was really going on with him. He wouldn’t have changed his mind so suddenly if something hadn’t happened while you were away, and you never really thought to ask him.

“I know you’re scared and confused, that’s easy to see on your face but besides that are you okay? I’m no doctor but fainting in the shower and being passed out for two days is not a normal thing to happen.” You swallowed and noticed your throat had become drier than before, you gulped the rest of your water down and held your breath trying to think of how you would tell Ray about what Ryan had said and done two days ago.

“What did Ryan tell you happened when you called him after I passed out?”

“How’d you know I called him?”

“I heard you all when you had Lindsay, Gavin, and Michael over. What did Ryan say?” You needed to hear this.

“He just said you checked on him had an argument and you left.”

“An argument? Did he say what it was about?”

“No, he just said all that and then hung up without another word, it was kind of weird actually.”

“Well it is Ryan what do you expect.”

“Why did you guys argue?” Ray deserved to know the truth, Ryan wasn’t going to give up until he knew that you two were a lost cause. It was hard thinking about Ryan being such a douche bag when he was just caring for you; bringing you medicine and soup.

“He said some things that really upset me.”

“Like what?” Ray was worried it was all over his face. You took his hands in yours and held them tightly.

“He said his feelings have changed for me, that he’s willing to put up a fight. Then he…” You couldn’t finish, Ray had fire in his eyes that was very evident he wanted to hurt Ryan.

“He what?”

“He kissed me, but I didn’t kiss him back, he forced me to him that’s where this is from”, you showed him your arm and the bruise was very purple now. “I told him I’d shoot him where he stood if he ever tried that again, but Ray this isn’t Ryan, something changed him he would never do this to you or me, we both agreed to separate he claims things have changed but nothing changed for me just for him, I need to figure out what that was so I can help him.”

“He kisses you and hurts you while doing it and you want to help him.”

“You’ve known Ryan for five years and in those five years has he ever made a pass at me or threatened you in any sort of way.”

“Well he did threaten me when we first started hooking up but I figured that was just him being over protective.”

“Exactly over protective Ryan I can handle, but not vindictive evil cartoon villain coming to steal my virtue Ryan. That isn’t the Ryan I know that’s the Ryan that other people see.” Ray thought it over, you could see that he was still angry but the fire had dimmed ever so slightly at the idea that something could really be wrong with Ryan. No matter how angry he was Ryan was still family and we always had each other’s backs through thick and thin.

“Maybe he’s finally snapped and decided that he doesn’t care anymore, he did just have a near death experience maybe once he’s all better and starts working again he’ll mellow out.”

“I don’t think so he was acting strange before remember”, you reminded him of the incident during the meeting. “I just chalked it up to Ryan being over protective since I’d just gotten out and that he needed to get used to us again but I was wrong, Gavin had mentioned that me being locked up had affected someone and he had started to say someone’s name I thought maybe it was you but looking back now maybe it was Ryan. I think Gavin might know something.”

“Okay, we’ll talk to Gavin in the morning and then talk to Ryan, until then let’s just get some sleep.” He took your tray of food away and came back to you already huddled under the blankets. 

Your life had turned upside down again; you weren’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. It was a large piece of the puzzle you needed to figure out, Ray lay next to you and instantly fell asleep, you were more scared to fall asleep and wake up back in the past with Ryan, you didn’t know how this all worked but you knew it happened any time you passed out, your life was turning into a mess and it scared you, you were in love with two men both in two different worlds it seemed. You rolled over to face Ray, you had tried so hard to forget about loving him in the past world you had spent a year of your life in but looking at him now it was hard to imagine not loving him. His face was soft as he slept, care free almost. 

You memorized every inch of it saving every detail you could for whenever you woke up in your other life, you needed to remember it because you could not be with him there, you were with Ryan and that part hurt you and scared you now being in this life, but when you were with him in the other life it was easy to be apart from Ray as if Ryan was a band aid holding you together until you were with Ray again, a band aid you’d grown to love again.

Your mind raced in circles as the sun rose, you didn’t sleep you just watched Ray those last few hours of sleep he got. When the sun rose you climbed out of bed careful not to wake him, in the chaos last night you hadn’t realized you were in his room, you walked silently through the living room and to your bedroom, your clothes from two days ago were scattered on the floor you gathered them up and threw them in your hamper before grabbing some shorts and a t-shirt from your dresser and heading to the bathroom you showered quickly not really letting the water relax you and dressed just as quickly, you didn’t bother drying your hair.

You looked around your room nothing was different; no one had rummaged through your things which was nice. You walked over to where you locked your gun away, someone had done it for you, you unlocked the wooden box and there laying on the blue crushed velvet was your gun, something you hadn’t even gotten yet in your other life, reading the inscription made your stomach knot, you had just used those words with Ryan in the night club where you two had sex, it was hard to look at it. You closed the lid and locked it back up, you had other guns but that one was your favorite, you would just have to use another one for now.

You opened the top drawer of your dresser and reached inside to pull a small hidden lever towards the back, once you pulled it you could hear clicking and wheels turning. Behind the dresser the wall started to open and the dresser slid to the side to reveal your secret stash of guns, you knelt down and grabbed your silver and purple Desert Eagle. You tucked it in your holster and hid it under your shirt before you closed up your secret stash and headed back to wake Ray, you both had a long day ahead of you and you needed him to be up and ready to go immediately.

“Ray”, you nudged him gently and watched him stir, he rolled over and opened his with a smile on his face.

“Morning, did you sleep at all last night?”

“Not really, it was hard to sleep with my mind racing.” Ray took in your clothes and frowned remembering everything from last night finally and realizing what you both were going to have to do today.

“I see you’re ready to start the day then”, he sat up and stretched.

“Well you know me ‘early to rise’ prison rules drilled into my brain.”

“Well give me a minute to shower and get ready then we can start your little operation.” You left and sat in the living room turned your phone over in your hand nervously, you waited for it to be seven o’clock before calling Geoff and talking about a side mission you’d been thinking about while you were getting ready for the day. Once the time switched to seven you dialed his number and waited for him to answer, after only two rings you heard his panicked voice over the phone.

“Y/N! Oh my god you’re finally awake! How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine Geoff, for the most part, there’s something that I want to bring to the table last today, but I want a one on one with you first before I let the others know.”

“Well Jack won’t be in for another hour so can it wait till then?” 

“No Geoff I want this meeting to be just between us, no Jack, not yet at least. It’s a very serious topic and I want your full undivided attention.”

”Okay, well come in now and we’ll talk.” You hung up and walked back to Ray’s room, when he got out of the shower you watched him dress, you smiled when you caught your stare.

“I’m going to see Geoff, you can come but I’m meeting with him in private about something.”

“Is it about Ryan?”

“No this is something more serious than Ryan’s mood swings. We’ll deal with that later, for now I think what I need to say to Geoff is more important I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”

“Okay well I’m ready if we can at least stop for coffee before we head over there.” You nodded and followed him out of the house with your bag in hand.

You got in Ray’s car today, he held the door open for you as you climbed in and made a noise as you sat down, but before you could say anything he had closed the door and was already walking around to his side. When he got in he turned the radio up loud, you knew that meant he didn’t want to talk and that he was thinking about something, you figured it was just about the whole Ryan situation.

Coffee in hand you rushed to the elevator of headquarters and flipped off Geoff when he asked for the password he, like Kerry, was watching the cameras and with just that one gesture you could hear the elevator begin to lower to your level. Ray watched you as you bounced on the balls of your feet in an anxious manner you needed to force yourself be relaxed. The elevator opened and Geoff was instantly there hugging you, you’d almost forgotten you had been out for two days and he hadn’t seen you up and around since the last time you spoke, but you had just seen him in your other life so the hug was a surprise, you still hugged him back gladly.

“It’s good to see you awake finally.”

“Yeah”, you smiled weakly sighed.

“So what did you want to talk about?” He asked, Ray moved around you both and sat down in the living room, you walked to the office and waited for Geoff to close the door and sit down in his usual spot.

“I want to ask you something that will most likely sound crazy but is a very serious request.”

“Okay”, Geoff sounded worried. You had thought all morning about how you would phrase your request to him and every answer he would give you, none of them good.

“I think we should talk with Jeremy and bring him in as part of the team and before you start yelling I want you to know that I understand what he has done to this team but to be fair we’ve started all the fire fights. If not for me asking for backup when Gavin had gotten shot that never would have happened, Michael and Gavin flew down the street firing at him and he just defended himself, with Ryan to be fair he went Mad King and tried to gun him down.” Geoff just looked at you stunned you’d be the one to say this when you knew how dangerous he was, especially to your little family, but if he was anything like he was in your dream life then you knew he would fit in with the team easily. Everyone else had been the same, almost everyone at least, why would he be any different.

“I don’t really know what to say.”

“I think he’d be a really good asset to our team, he’s very skilled in shooting and driving. He’s a good interrogator from what I’ve heard”, and seen in your dream life, “I think that you should really think about it before just shooting the idea down.” Geoff stood and looked out the window down on the city that was just slowly waking.

“I’ll bring this up with Jack and Ryan and get their opinions.”

“Ryan won’t go for it, he wants to skin him alive probably.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he did, Ryan’s been acting different since you were unconscious, I’m…I’m worried about him.”

“What do you mean different?”

“He came back to the office yesterday he wouldn’t talk to anyone he just kept staring at Jeremy’s file every now and then he’d take his phone out and type something and then go back to staring at the file. At first I thought he was texting someone but I saw the reflection against the window and it was names of buildings with addresses. If I can convince Jack maybe we can convince Ryan together and he will stop his man hunt.”

“So you agree with me?”

“I do, I was surprised that you even brought this up at first. I was thinking about bringing someone in to add to our group but anyone I looked up didn’t seem good enough, then after the whole Gavin incident and looking up his file he seemed skilled and like you said a good asset to our team, but I figured no one would go for it since they all pretty much had a vendetta against him at that point. I care about what you guys think and maybe with enough of us agreeing on this we can convince the others and manage to get him to join.”

You heard loud laughter coming from outside the door and it suddenly opened revealing Jack and Ryan talking. Your heart skipped a beat when you saw Ryan, his smile made you smile unconsciously you looked away forcing yourself to remember that this Ryan wasn’t your Ryan.

“Good, I want to talk with you both.” You stood immediately and walked to the door.

“Before we talk Geoff”, Ryan said before turning to you and saying, “can I talk with you?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Outside?” You shrugged in response and followed Ryan out to the balcony, Ray watched you both as you walked passed him you could feel his eyes on you still as you closed the door.

Ryan leaned over the railing and watched he cars below, you waited for him to say something, finally you walked over to him and leaned back on the railing facing towards the apartment.

“What did you want Ryan?”

“I’ve been thinking about what I did the other day. I’m sorry for how I acted you’re right that wasn’t fair, but I haven’t changed my view on us. My feelings are the same and I want to be with you and I’m willing to fight for you no matter what.”

“Ryan”, you began, you were torn between two words and four men. Being with Ryan in your dream life made you feel differently for this Ryan, and being with Ray in this life made it hard for you to be away from Ray in your dream life. No matter how hard you forced him out there was always going to be a part of you that wanted him, “I do love you, but not in the way you want me to. I don’t want to be with you, I want to be with Ray and it took me until last night to realize that I really was in love with him despite what I had said to you at your apartment. You won’t win this fight and I wish you would just give up and move on. You’re feeling something that isn’t real and I’m willing to talk it out with you to help you understand what it is that you’re feeling but I can tell you it isn’t love for me.”

“I know what loving you feels like Y/N, I know because I’ve felt it before. If you don’t love me back that’s fine but I do love you and one day you’ll wake up next to him and realize that what you’re feeling for him isn’t really love, and when that day comes I’ll be there waiting for you. I won’t stop loving you, ever.” He didn’t look at you as he spoke until her said ‘ever’, you swallowed hard at the intensity in his eyes, the genuine feelings behind his words your breath was shaky and so were you, you looked away and closed your eyes to fight back everything that you wanted to say to him.

Without another word you left him on the balcony, Ray got up to come to you but you just shook your head at him and you left the apartment. Once you were in Geoff’s garage you took his bike you had ridden the other day and rushed out to the street weaving between cars not bothering to check if police were on the streets already patrolling.

You drove out to the pier and parked, you sat on the bike for a few minutes trying to hold in your emotions, your life seemed to have gotten so stressful these last few weeks being out, you wanted everything to back to how it used to be, you needed to figure out what was going on. You got off the bike and walked along as the vendors were setting up their carts or workers lumbering to their posts hungover from the night before. Joggers and parents with crying children running up and down the pier, everyone looked like their lives were normal never an odd thing out of place the same old routine day in and day out not a significant detail out of place except one thing, only one person stuck out from the rest of the people.

He was sitting on the bench at the end of the pier texting on his phone every now and then he would glance his surroundings most likely checking for danger. You stepped behind the fun house building and took out your phone and dialed Geoff’s number.

“Hello?”

“Geoff he’s here.”

“Who?”

“Jeremy, he’s here at the pier who else would I be talking about?”

“Well Ryan left after you did and since neither of you said where you were going I figured you’d be talking about him.”

“Of course he did, I just needed to blow off some steam but Jeremy is here, did you talk to Jack yet?”

“We talked about it and Jack agrees but Ryan left after you did so we didn’t get a chance to bring it up to him yet. Michael and Gavin are on the fence, Ray agreed with you but there was no surprise there. Ryan is the make or break for Michael and Gavin I think, if you can get him back here and we talk to him about it we’ll go find him ourselves, but don’t approach him.”

“Alright”, you had almost hung up when someone had approached Jeremy in a familiar mask. It was Ryan. Your gasp alerted Geoff.

“What is it?”

“Geoff, Ryan’s here.”

“Shit you need to try and stop him he’ll listen to you.”

“He’s sitting down with him talking. Geoff what the actual fuck is going on right now. What am I witnessing?”

“I don’t know I’m sending Jack and Michael down. Keep an eye on him and text me if something happens or someone leaves, do not let them know you are there and are watching them.”

“Do you know who you’re talking to? I only get caught when I want to, I am the night Geoff.”

“Well it’s daytime so blend in.” He hung up on you. You watched as Jeremy and Ryan conversed with each other, after about ten minutes Jack and Michael showed up Ryan, and Jeremy had not moved from their spots on the bench.

“What the fuck is this bullshit? I thought Ryan was trying to kill him.”

“He was I watched him shoot at Jeremy and crash his car.”

“Well this doesn’t look like someone who wants to kill another person, is Ryan a double agent.” You rolled your eyes and looked at Michael.

“Okay first of all we aren’t spies, second of all clearly something is going on but double agent he is not, and third if you don’t keep your voice down they will hear us.” You turned back to the two who were now standing and shaking hands and then parted ways down opposite ends of the pier, Jeremy disappeared behind the roller coaster and Ryan headed your way.

“Hide”, you snapped at the two and ducked behind the dumpster that sat besides the building. Ryan walked past the three of you and to his car.

“I’m calling Geoff and following Ryan, you two head back I have a feeling he isn’t going back to HQ.” You dialed Geoff’s number before you got on your bike you made the conversation quick so you wouldn’t lose Ryan. As soon as you hung up you sped after Ryan keeping a good distance between the two of you, he drove all the way to Mount Chiliad and got out, he looked around to make sure he wasn’t being watched and headed towards the path.

“What are you doing Ryan?” You whispered. You knew you couldn’t follow him on foot without him seeing you, you had to think of a different way of following him. You felt your phone buzzing in your pocket the caller ID read Ray.

“Hello?” You whispered.

“What is going on? You left and then Ryan left, then Jack and Michael left and Geoff just told us that Ryan is meeting in secret with Jeremy, where the fuck are you?”

“I’m following Ryan he’s at Mount Chiliad.”

“Why are you following him? Just come back we’ll figure this out together, you know as a family, or does that not mean anything to you anymore?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying that you’re not acting like yourself right now, the old you would come back and work this out as a team, but the new you seems to want to do things on her own.”

“Ray you are wrong and right now I’m not going to listen to this.” You hung up and shoved your phone back in your pocket.

“What’re you doing?” Ryan’s amused voice asked behind you. As an instinct you reached for your gun and pulled it out on him.

“Jesus Christ Ryan what the fuck are you doing? Don’t sneak up on me.”

“Says the person following and spying on me.” He raised his hand and slowly lowered your gun from his face; you tucked it behind you in your holster again and crossed your arms.

“I am not spying on you, I was here first and you just happened to show up.”

“Right, you having a lovers quarrel?”

“Fuck off Ryan; this is your fault. If you hadn’t said that stuff this morning I wouldn’t have left and Ray wouldn’t be being bitchy towards me right now.”

“So I should just keep my feelings to myself?”

“Yes!” You shouted. Ryan just watched you it was hard to look into his eyes you knew what you would see there.

“I’ll ask again, what are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” Ryan started laughing, a genuine laugh.

“We’re just going in circles here, why are you following me? I know you are, you think I didn’t recognize Geoff’s bike all the way back at the pier, I know you were there, were you watching me then too?”

“If I said yes?”

“Did you tell Geoff?”

“What if I did?” You stared at his face now carefully watching every feature for signs that he was nervous, or angry but he wasn’t he was completely calm.

“When you were unconscious I was angry with myself, I blamed myself, I went to the pier battling between some dangerous thoughts and he showed up. I nearly killed him the second he came into my line of sight but I didn’t, he held his hands up and he talked to me. He told me what he wanted, what he needed, and I listened to him.”

“So what, you’re friends with him now? Are you leaving the group for him?”

“Why would I leave you guys?”

“Well you did just meet in secret with a man you were just trying to kill not three days ago. You didn’t tell anyone where you were going and then you come here still not telling anyone where you are. It’s suspicious can you blame me for just assuming that there’s something going on that isn’t right.”

“Y/N Geoff has done so much for me I wouldn’t betray him like that”, his voice was gentle as he spoke to you. He took your hand and led you to his car, he opened the passenger side and you climbed in. Once he was in the drivers’ seat, he started up his car and drove up the mountain, you waited to talk to him knowing he had a lot more to say to you but he wanted more privacy and no one was typically up here this early in the morning still except for the few joggers. He parked when he reached the top and got out; you followed him and sat down at the edge of the small wooden platform for parachuters’ to jump from.

“Jeremy wants to join the group, he was watching us for a while and when Gavin got shot that day that’s why he was watching the street waiting to see one of us and stop us to talk. He regrets shooting Gavin; he was just scared because he was being shot at. We were coming up with ideas on how to bring it up to the team but I told him not to get his hopes up because I didn’t think it was going to work.” It was your turn to laugh, if only Ryan had just stayed at HQ and talked to Geoff he’d realize how wrong he was and he wouldn’t have gotten everyone’s traitor radar up.

“Ryan you’re an idiot.”

“What?” He was smiling now.

“I talked to Geoff this morning about bringing him in.”

“Really? Why would you want to bring him in? He shot your favorite Lad.”

“Wait why would you assume Gavin is my favorite?”

“You treat him different than the other two.”

“I really doubt that I treat him different than Ray.”

“You’re kinder to Gavin, you use pet names with him you don’t do that with Ray.”

“Well that’s just because Gavin has a flirtatious nature and it comes out when I talk to him, that doesn’t mean he’s my favorite.”

“Oh please it’s very clear he’s your favorite, you were the one to bring him on, it’s only natural for you to be protective over him and him be your favorite. The other two have accepted it and even Gavin knows that he’s your favorite that’s why he gets away with a lot of stuff with you.”

“Anyways”, you were getting off track of the conversation at hand, “I wanted to bring him in because I feel like he could be a good addition to our little family. Not knowing about your conversation with him I knew he was a good shot, a great driver, and I’ve heard he is an excellent interrogator.”

“So you think everyone will go for it?”

“All we need is Gavin and Michael to agree, if you say the word they’ll let him join.”

“Let’s do this then”, he stood up and reached for your hand as he spoke. You took it willingly, this much touching you could handle. You both walked back to the car in silence and drove back to HQ to tell the others the news. Ryan would bring in Jeremy and you all would have a long talk with him, you’re only problem now was it seemed Ray was still pissed off at you for not going to get him and Ryan seemed to be enjoying that even if he wasn’t admitting it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a lot longer than I had intended but it was for good reason. I hope you all like where this is going. If it's getting confusing I'll take that all into consideration and tweak it up.


	6. It's Just a Scratch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I mean what's life without a few bullet wounds? Am I right?

Two weeks after Jeremy had joined the crew and it seemed like he filled in a missing piece of the puzzle you didn’t know was gone. He joined the Lads very quickly everyone seemed to be on the same wavelength for the first time in a long time, well almost everyone.

“Ray seriously what else do you want me to do?” He had gotten upset with you when you came back with Ryan and you were both smiling. He had apparently been hoping you would be angry and fighting him.

“I’m not asking you for anything Y/N, I just don’t understand what’s going on with you, ever since you woke up you’ve been acting strange.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on with me either Ray. I know I’ve been acting strange but I’m just trying to cope with what I can, I woke up from what felt like over a year living in another time period over the span of two days after what felt like waking up after a five year period in a time span of one night. I’m confused everything is going wrong with us and I want it all to go back to normal. I feel like each night I go to sleep and wake up here another piece of me chips off in waiting for the moment I won’t wake up here. I’m scared Ray and you being upset with me because I’m trying to hold it together and make everything the best I can is not helping. You may not be asking me for anything but I’m begging you to help me by being by my side and you’re not doing that for me.”

“I’m trying but it just doesn’t make sense, the Y/N I know would not stand for the shit that Ryan did, she would put him in his place.”

“What do you want from me?! I have already told him to back off, I have told you everything that happened. Do you want me to just disown him? He’s family!”

“We don’t hurt each other!”

“So tell him that! Don’t yell at me for something that you’re upset that _he_ did!”

You both stared at each other for a long time, this had been the tenth time you had argued today all the others were petty arguments this one had turned into a full on shouting match in the middle of your living room. Your phone rang and you answered it before you or Ray could say anything else.

“Yeah”, your tone was still angry.

_“Jesus what crawled up your ass and died?”_

“What do you want Michael? I’m really not in the mood for this.”

_“Geoff needs you to go check on Jeremy, he and Ryan were on a job and neither have answered their phones in over three hours. I’m at Ryan’s house and neither of them are here.”_

“Alright I’ll take Ray and head over.” You hung up the phone and grabbed your bag you paused at the door and looked at Ray.

“What’s wrong?”

“Jeremy and Ryan are missing.”

“I’m not going, you can deal with this on your own.”

“What the fuck Ray! Seriously?” You were livid at this point; it was as if he hadn’t listened to a word you said to him earlier.

“They can handle themselves.”

“Clearly not if they are missing. What happened to we don’t hurt each other Ray? You abandoning them like this is hurting them.”

“They’ll be fine, they always are.” He walked away and slammed his bedroom door; you left the apartment slamming the door behind yourself and headed towards the garage.

You jumped in your purple Kuruma and drove off to Jeremy’s. You rambled on to yourself the whole way there in your anger towards Ray about how childish he was being, that you weren’t the one to change he was, you were trying couldn’t he see that. When you arrived at Jeremy’s apartment, you ran up to the front door and buzzed his doorbell a few times your eyes scanning every moving shadow and shaking leaf. There was no answer but the door buzzed open suddenly, you drew your gun and kept it low as you slowly walked to the elevator. You had to be careful as you walked under all the cameras in the hall leading to Jeremy’s door, if someone saw you with your gun out you knew the cops would be here at any minute. You stopped at his door and listened hard for any movement, you could hear feet shuffling but no voices behind the thick wood door. You stepped to the side of the door avoiding the peephole and knocked a few times; no answer. You waited for a few minutes and knocked again, still no answer. You pulled your phone out and dialed Jeremy’s number, you could hear his phone going off but it wasn’t answered, you tried Ryan’s number and the same thing happened.

“Fuck.” You rushed down the hall to the elevator just as the doors were sliding shut Jeremy’s door opened and two men came running down towards you with their guns drawn you shot at them as the bullets rained down on you, before the doors managed to shut all the way you got clipped in your arm.

“Fuck fuck fuck.” You ripped the sleeve of your shirt off and tied it above your arm to lessen the bleeding, you rushed out of the apartment building and made it safely to your car. You pulled your phone out again and dialed Geoff’s number.

“I’m at Jeremy’s apartment”, the pain was becoming more intense as the shock started to wear off, “I called their phones and they were in the apartment. I don’t know if the guys were actually in there but their phones were. Two guys came out as I was leaving and they shot me. I’m on my way get my room set up and sanitized. Use the blue bottles on the floor, the yellow bottle on the table, and the green bottle on any tools you can find.” Geoff didn’t respond at first and it made you worry that he had been taken too.

_“Okay I’ve got it all down, Michael will meet you outside, is Ray okay?”_ You started your car with difficulty and started driving to Geoff’s apartment now.

“He didn’t come with he stayed at the apartment, can someone go check on him?”

_“Michael said he was coming with you.”_ You groaned as you turned the wheel.

“He didn’t Geoff; go clean I’m almost there.” You hung up and threw your phone hard against the opposite side of the car. The anger fueled you enough to get to Geoff’s apartment and you managed to get out in time for Michael to catch you as you slid to the ground. You were losing a lot of blood, you needed to try to fix yourself up rather than go to the hospital. You started to fade in and out, as Michael carried you to the elevator, you could hear Gavin’s voice and suddenly you were in his arms.

“Love what happened?”

“I’m alright, just a scratch.” Your breathing was weak you needed to hurry. Gavin carried you to your room and set you down on the table, it smelled extremely disinfected; Geoff did a good job cleaning.

“What do you need?” Jack asked when you managed to open your eyes.

“Adrenalin”, you managed to breathe out. Jack scrambled around looking for the cupboard that had secure needles in them.

“I need the keys, Geoff grab them from her purse.” You could hear Geoff running out of the room and a jingling noise came telling you that Geoff had returned quickly. Jack threw open the cabinet and grabbed a needle from it handing it to your limp hand.

“Come on Y/N take it, please I don’t know what to do.” You tried to tell him your heart but it just wasn’t coming out, over and over again you tried but nothing was coming out.

“What do we do? She’s losing too much blood.”

“We’ve got to take her to the hospital.”

“She won’t make it.”

“What do we do?”

“Shut up and let me think!”

“Y/N please tell us what to do. We can’t do this without you. Don’t leave,” Gavin whispered in your ear, your heart broke as the sound of his voice you wanted nothing more than to make him feel better, Ryan was right maybe he was your favorite Lad, you needed to find the strength for him right now.

“Heart”, your voice croaked. There was a shuffle of movement and the suddenly a stabbing pain landed on your chest then burning came. The adrenalin hit your heart like a reboot and you gasped as it flooded your veins, the blood soaring through your body like it was on speed.

“Hurry, grab the Novocain”, you shouted at Jack. He rushed back to the cupboard and grabbed another needle, you jammed it into your arm and threw it on the floor, you barked orders at all of the men in the room to grab supplies and guided them on how to help you remove the bullet, and after a long two hours they helped close up your wound.

“Thanks guys, you did a good job.” Your body was exhausted as the adrenalin wore off, your brothers in arms stood around you everyone wore the same expression on their face a mixture of relief and exhaustion. You closed your eyes finally letting the darkness swallow you as the pain in your arm lessened from the morphine and fluids you had explained to Jack to do once you were done with the surgery. As you drifted one by one they squeezed your hand and left the room, you managed to glimpse Michael as he left, he looked more worried than before the surgery, you knew he was worrying about Ryan and Jeremy now that you were taken care of and you didn’t blame him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back sorry for leaving you all hanging for a few months. I've moved to a completely different state and I'm just getting back into the rhythm of things. I'm going to try and update all my stories soon! Love you all!


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